It was Meena’s twenty-sixth birthday and she had got it in her head to celebrate with karaoke at the E-Room. We always went with equal measures of irony and hope, every six months or so—just long enough to forget that after the last time we’d sworn never to return.
Only now that we can never return, now that the E-Room is razed and gone, a LEED-certified New Portland condo built over its ruins, do I know that those lesbians I had always mocked or turned away from, those bulldaggers and diesel dykes, those denim vests and feathered bangs, those mullets and dated glasses, eyes roaming the room, were not worst-case scenarios—they were me in another life. Where did they come from? we always asked each other, imagining there was some other Portland lesbian universe we didn’t know about. We didn’t get that they weren’t from Portland. They came from the gritty Tonya Harding suburbs and the tough little mountain towns and the foggy farm-strewn valley to the only designated lesbian space in hundreds of miles. I claimed my rural Nebraska–ness as my badge of authenticity but couldn’t have recognized it if it hoisted itself onto a bar stool right next to me. I just picked up my pitcher of Pabst and hurried back to my friends to pore over the songbooks. We’d scored a table right up front by the stage.
“Since when do you like karaoke?” Summer said as I filled out my slips. I claimed that I always had, I was just getting braver. Meena wanted to do Scaryoke—where you let other people choose your song, title revealed only when you’re called to the mic—but in the face of desperate opposition, she leveled a benevolent compromise: “Okay, you can only sing songs you’ve never done before.” We submitted. It was her birthday. Authority was the greatest gift we could give her.
I wrote down a few options and handed them to Meena. Technically, I cheated—Ryan and I had sung “Rocket Man” at the Vancouver bar, but none of my friends had ever heard me do it, so I decided it was fair game. Meena gathered all our slips and brought them to the KJ. I poured myself a beer, sat back, and looked up.
He was fiddling with the microphone stand, adjusting it to his considerable height. He wore the beat-up Alaska T-shirt I always liked. Only a month had passed since the lesbian art show and the pathetic unanswered e-mail I’d sent afterward, yet he looked different—maybe it was how the stage light gilded the hair that now fell over his eyebrows and shadowed his cheeks so they appeared sculpted and the stubble almost gleamed. When he looked up to find the screen, his eyes grazed mine and froze.
Summer elbowed me. “Hey, it’s that guy, isn’t it?”
“Sure looks like it.” My face flushed hot and I was grateful for the darkness.
She crossed her legs. “He must really like lesbians.” She took a deep sip from her straw.
“Don’t they all,” said Lawrence, flipping to the next page of the songbook. “There’s two more at the bar.”
Ryan shook his head and cracked a helpless half smile as the screen flashed “HEARTBREAKER” IN THE STYLE OF DIONNE WARWICK. And the opening riff began its downward tumble, into a song whose breeziness belies that it offers not a moment of emotional, or respiratory, respite.
“Why do you have to be a heartbreaker, when I was being what you want me to be?” Ryan sang it with a tuneful nonchalance, no showboating, no eyes-fixed-to-the-screen timidity. The lyrics were getting to me, and maybe him too, but he pulled the classic karaoke strategy of faint skeptical detachment, replete with tongue-in-cheek hops into a sweet creaky falsetto.
“He’s good,” Summer said.
I agreed, feigning surprise. But I already knew what he could do. Karaoke shines a harsh light on a pop song—by spelling out every lyric and whoop and separating song from star power, it drags vapidity and lazy repetition out into unflattering view. Ryan knew how to pick a song: how to find a semiforgotten hit that showed its good bones, how to pull out an underdog that made you want to find the original, how to nail the feel-good hit that was a pleasure to hear again.
“What are you doing here?” I said through a smile as he neared my table to vigorous lesbian applause. I stood and stepped away as if heading to the restroom. “Field studies?”
“What are you doing here?” he said. “You called this place a shame vortex.”
“But it’s our shame vortex.” I peered toward the back of the room, where his table had to be lurking in the shadows.
“I’m with Jesse and his girlfriend,” he said. “We just wanted to try a new place. Should we leave?”
“Of course not,” I said, and then silently cursed myself for missing the chance to tell a straight man to leave a lesbian bar. Once again, I had failed my people. “I’m going to the restroom now.”
Five minutes of graffiti-reading later, I returned to the karaoke room just in time to hear my name.
Back in that Vancouver bar, I had scoffed at Elton John (arena pop, mom music, that transitional claim he was bisexual, which with his baby bangs and silly glasses seemed as much a mean joke as a cop-out)—but with a wise shake of his head Ryan had tamped down my petty complaints and we’d sung “Rocket Man,” trading off lines in the verses, singing the chorus together. Revelation. It was the saddest song I’d heard in years. Afterward I went out and bought the record for fifty cents and listened to that song over and over when I was home alone.
Then, it had been the two of us among the locals, loose with our anonymity, our private familiarity. Disco light dappling our faces. Now it was only me. Ryan way back in the dark. My friends between us, watching. I sang, “I’m not the man they think I am at home, oh no, no, no.”
My irony failed me, and I wasn’t that much of a performer anyway; all I could do was sing like I meant it. Summer and Topher held up lighters and waved them back and forth in time. I squinted toward the shadowy depths of the room but the stage lights blazed out my view. I fixed my eyes to the screen, kept singing. I wouldn’t look again. Burning out his fuse up here alone.
There, we’re even, I thought as I walked back to my seat. Our unintentional sad songs. Truce.
But we weren’t: the next one he did was “Different Drum,” a kiss-off, back-off song. Those lyrics should have been mine, and he knew it; I could tell he was singing the song as me. It was in the twist of mock sympathy, the slight cock of his head on the verse, and the little cowlick-twirl he did at the start of the chorus—my thinking-during-Scrabble habit. It’s just that I am not in the market for a boy who wants to lo-ove only meeee.
He slid a glance right at me on the final line, We’ll both live a lot longer if you live without me.
I couldn’t believe it. Was it coy or was it war? I hadn’t been planning to sing again but I immediately put in a slip for the Johnny Cash version of “It Ain’t Me Babe.”
By now the place was filling up. The air thickened with cigarette smoke, and the KJ—by this point, toasted—turned on a fog machine. The evening’s first group rendition of “Love Shack” marked the point of no return.
An hour had passed since any of us had sung. Summer was at the bar waiting to close her tab when the KJ called out my name. “We can just go,” I said. I was over it. My response was too late. But the crew wouldn’t have it; they whooped me on, and I wove through the now-full and raucous tables to get to the microphone.
At least the Cash song was short, I thought, though now I felt sheepish and petty.
But the song was not “It Ain’t Me Babe.” It was one Meena had brought up for me at the beginning of the night: “Second Hand News” by Fleetwood Mac. I’d never sung it before, but I stored the tape permanently in my hatchback and it had backgrounded my travel for so long now the whole album was in my bones. With only a measure of intro, the words popped up on the screen and I plunged in after them.
An easy song, easy key, no weird notes, room to breathe—this would be fine.
Halfway into the song, a pack of lesbians we all knew emerged like crime fighters through the powdery smoke of the machine and the blue cigarette haze. They wore surplus jackets and denim and black hoodies, boots and thrifted wing tips. The Brotherhood, they c
alled themselves. They had taken to visiting strip clubs together, affecting a playboy attitude, and talking a rueful, boastful, had-to-let-her-go talk, even though they were as young and vulnerable as any of us. They were handsome, but alone none of them was anything special; their power was in numbers, their benign gang. I received a thumbs-up as they swaggered by. I smiled as I sang, “Won’t you lay me down in the tall grass and let me do my stu-uh-uff.”
Then Flynn came into the light, at the back of the pack, and instantly I knew I was headed for Karaoke Shame. Karaoke Shame is a remorse hangover you can sum up as One Song Too Many. That last song of the night that you somehow thought was a good idea and you wake up regretting. But knowing when to leave has never been my strong suit. See also: Flynn.
The song launched into its final section, which I’d forgotten about in my smug familiarity. It turned out Lindsey Buckingham sings “Now now now now now” for thirty-three endless seconds. The real song sounded more like bow, but the karaoke cast it as now. Seventy-two in a row. Ryan would have known better, I thought ruefully as the blue screen filled with now like a test pattern.
The pack stopped at our table. I could see Meena’s and Summer’s mouths moving, nods exchanged. Flynn, hanging back, surveyed the room. Her eyes lit on her old buddy Ryan, who stood at the bar, and they waved at each other. She peeled away and walked toward him.
“Now now now now now,” I kept singing. Panic as I saw Flynn high-five Ryan, and I watched each new now turn from unsung white to sung yellow, counted them off until the screen was all yellows, thank god, I was done—
And the screen refreshed with a whole new block of now.
Buckingham had sung it with an entire band behind him, but I stood alone with a preprogrammed soundtrack, stammering along, pinned to the wall, lit up. The KJ released a merry poof of dry-ice smoke. The burnt-sweet smell swirled around me. I kicked my toe against the ground in time. My solo turn had gone off the rails. Now went on forever.
Ryan caught my eye and gave me a sympathetic thumbs-up. I mimed a gun to my temple, eye-rolled, and he smiled for real. It’s all okay, I thought in the moment before Flynn looked at him, then at me, then back. She leaned in to his ear, and I pivoted back to the screen just as the nows emptied and released me into a few final helpless wails of “I’m just second hand neeeews.” The song collapsed into a merciful fade of guitar noodling. I bolted.
“Good one,” everyone said politely, already wearing their coats. The Brotherhood lurked around our table, waiting to replace us.
“Cross that song out of the playbook,” I said with a game grin. Come on, it was great, they said, but sympathy leaked out around the edges of their reassurance. Lawrence handed me my jacket. As we said our good-nights and see-you-at-that-things, Flynn walked back to us from the bar, whiskey in hand.
There was a moment when I could have pretended not to see her, turned away and led the charge to the front door, but I hesitated; I had to steal a fraction of a second to try to read her face, and she caught me—her mouth turned up in some kind of smile and it was too late. In the haze and darkness all I saw were the cheekbone shadows and an illegible glint of the eyes beneath her forelock.
“Hey,” she said, and I said, “Hey,” and the brothers watched and my friends watched and Ryan in his corner probably watched too; they held their pencils poised above their song slips, squinted at the lyrics unfolding on the screen with unusual interest, took great care to button their coats. In that moment I would rather have been up at the microphone singing now now now alone. Instead, Second Hand News and her ex one-arm-hugged, arching toward each other carefully, strangely. My sense of space felt all askew. It amazed me how familiar she still was, how I still didn’t know her body as anything other than one that moved close to mine.
“Good song,” she said.
“It really wasn’t, but thanks,” I said. “We’re just on our way out. Enjoy the table.”
“Hey, I didn’t know you and Ryan were friends now.”
“He cuts my hair,” I said quickly.
“Oh. He said he’d given you drum lessons?”
“He told you that?” I shifted on my hip. Meena, in my peripheral vision, looked surprised.
“What, was it a secret?”
“No, no, it’s true.” I very carefully wiggled my jacket’s zipper into its slide. “I just didn’t want to tell anyone yet because, well, to tell you the truth—because I’m still so bad at it.”
Flynn made a that’s-so-cute face. “Hand-eye coordination never was your strong suit.” She gave me a fond smile.
I wanted to kick her. But I said, “Oh, just wait. You’d be surprised.” I shot a help look back at my friends, and Topher saved me with a faux-exasperated round-up motion.
I stewed in the back seat on the ride home. The problem was, Flynn was right. Oh, the curse of the ex who actually knows you. But why did she have to be right? She didn’t get to be right about me anymore.
At home I took the cordless phone into my room and called Ryan. His answering machine picked up. “It’s me,” I said. “About these so-called drum lessons? I don’t know why you said that. But maybe I can take you up on the lie. I really want to hit something. Hard.”
Lessons
IN WOOL GLOVES AND A DOWN VEST, I BIKED OVER ON A COOL gray Tuesday to the practice space, a rented chunk of warehouse in North Portland—old brick and big black iron windows, a view of the train tracks and glimpses of the river between silos, a dusty space heater whirring in the corner. Ryan sat me behind a stripped-down practice set: a snare, a tom, a kick drum, and a high-hat. True to our old rule, we did not process.
Flynn was right. I had no skill. My foot moved and my arms jerked into action a half second later. “Why did you tell her drum lessons?” I moaned.
“It was the first thing that came to mind.” He was trying not to laugh at me but soon gave up.
I pointed to my head with a drumstick. “Haircut!”
“I don’t know, I cut Flynn’s hair, I didn’t think to cross the wires. But look, here you are. Stop kicking for a minute.”
I had been thumping on the kick drum. Ryan made me take my foot off the pedal and focus on my hands first. He broke it down: tap, tap, tap, tap with one hand, then tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap with the other. “Just go steady until it feels like a part of you. Then bring in the kick.”
I obeyed. The beat smoothed out. It stuttered sometimes when I added the kick, but Ryan sat down at his full kit and hit the snare rim like a metronome. I caught on, kept up. He threw in some fills. I kept going with my basic tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, he let me lay down the beat, and he started to embellish it.
We sounded all right, the two of us playing. The good parts were all him, but I was at the base of it too. Each hit traveled through the sticks and up my arms. My whole body was doing this work. The sound filled me, for once a sound I was making.
“I never knew I could do this,” I shouted over the beat, and immediately lost it. “I mean, I can’t yet, but.”
“You can. Now you just need a band.”
Meena always said a band is only as good as its drummer, and I told Ryan I didn’t have the heart to bring anyone down like that with my anti-skills. “What if we were just a band like this?” I said.
“Two drummers?”
“Yeah.” I sneaked in a crash of the cymbal and lost my footing for a second. “You’re going to have to sing.”
Ryan waited until I found the beat again and then skipped into a familiar galloping rhythm I couldn’t quite place until he started to sing the first verse.
“Stop it!” I cried.
“When times go bad, and you can’t get enough—”
I gave in and hollered along, “Won’t you lay me down in the tall grass and let me do my stuff,” and then I tried to knock the stick out of his hand with my own.
“Torture!” I said. “No fair!”
He was still laughing and I was too.
I remembered that I liked hanging out with him,
how it could feel easy like that. He didn’t try anything with me, and this—being friends, teacher and apprentice, playing together—seemed to neutralize the disturbance of our affair. I’d defeated the aberrant sexual thing that had briefly threatened to destabilize my life. We had normalized: the lesbian and the straight guy, just friends, as God and nature intended. What a relief.
He sent me home with a set of drum pads and I practiced in my room, tapping along to records. I put on “Schizophrenia” by Sonic Youth and there it was, that boom-boom-BOOM-boom-boom-boom-BOOM. And I was not only listening but playing along. The song filled me to all corners all over again. The simplest beat can get you just like that. The simplest beats of all keep you going every day—your footsteps down the sidewalk, the pulse of your blood through your heart.
The Cold Shoulder van pulled up in front of my house after two weeks of lessons. Ryan got out and started unloading a set of drums, a root-beer Gretsch kit.
“Got room for these in the basement?”
“Yes. But wait, no, I can’t take those.”
“Sure,” he said. “I like to live light. You need to practice. It all works out.”
I was too delighted to feign protest. “Promise you’ll come get them if you ever need them back.”
He promised.
Those drums! I was smitten. I wanted to play all the time. My improvement was negligible, but I loved hitting them. When I played, I could think of nothing else, as every part of my body and my mind jostled together in the effort of making a steady beat. My palm skin thickened. I ran my fingers over the calluses while I sat behind the counter at the record store or Artifacts. I was turning into one of those people who’s always tapping on things.
“He gave you his drums?” Meena said, and frowned. “What does he expect in return?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
She had a point. I did not want to owe him. That’s when I got the idea for the guitar.
Stray City Page 12