Featherless Bipeds

by Richard Scarsbrook

  Akim and Tristan wave to the energetic crowd as they strap on their guitars, but their minds are elsewhere. Sung Li and Veronica have not arrived at the bar yet, and they were supposed to have been here over an hour ago. Of course I’m worried, too. Zoe is supposed to come with them.

  Lola’s anger, though, brings the rock ‘n’ roll back to our otherwise deflated band.

  “How’s everybody doing out there on this fine Saturday night?” she shrieks at her microphone.

  The crowd roars back at her.

  “Do you feel like rockin’ on this Saturday night?”

  Another roar, even louder.

  “Do you feel like jumping up and down? Do you feel like spinning all around? Do you feel like kicking some ass on this Saturday night?”

  The hundred voices reverberate like a thousand.

  Lola counts the band in, “One, two, ONE TWO THREE FOUR!”

  We kick into one of our best cover songs, one that Lola has introduced perfectly: “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting”.

  The dance floor is jammed with bodies, dancing, jumping, spinning. Lola’s gritty vocals are more powerful when she’s angry, and her energy drives the band, and the crowd, into a frenzy. On the dance floor, bodies careen around wildly. Then there is bumping and shoving. A few random fights break out. At the end of the song, there is a roar like ten thousand voices, wanting more, more, more.

  Then I see Zoe’s face pop through the surface of the writhing sea of frenzied dancers. Tristan waves to Veronica when he catches her eye. Akim grins as Sung Li pushes her way through the crowd to the front of the stage.

  As Lola shouts, “Yeah! Rock ‘n’ roll!” my soaring heart stalls and crashes. Emerging from the crowd behind Zoe is Jerry. Great. Her “boyfriend” tagged along for the ride. Wonderful.

  Lola glances back at me, then says into the mike, “How would you folks like to hear a Featherless Bipeds original?”

  Of course the crowd responds at full volume; Lola holds them in the palm of her hand.

  “Our drummer wrote this! Take it away, Dak!”

  Holding her outstretched arms in my direction, Lola steps aside. Down there at the edge of the stage, Zoe’s mouth is open, and she’s looking right up at me. Immediately my throat gets dry.

  Then I see Jerry. He’s standing to one side of Zoe, rolling his eyes and shaking his head, muttering to himself. A new feeling rushes through me like a cascade of cool water.

  “This one’s called ‘Stunt Man’,” I say into my mike. “And I’d like to dedicate this song to my old buddy Jerry.”

  Tristan starts the song with a throbbing bassline, I dig into the drums, and look right at Jerry as I start singing:

  Unlike the moving picture

  Projected on that silver cloth

  Who plays the lover’s role

  Who plays the hero’s part

  There’s no need here for a mannequin

  With plastic hair and breasts

  To complete a movie still

  Behind a plate of plastic glass

  Won’t see me in a tailored trench coat

  Playing dress-up debonair

  Blowing smoky movie promises

  As the camera lens inhales

  Lola joins in with a high, powerful harmony on the next verse, mirroring the same wicked grin that stretches across my own face.

  But when the script calls for your body to

  Thrash helpless through the air

  And the leading man can’t take the risk

  of messing up his hair

  The stunt man will be me

  The band pauses, the hiss of a crash cymbal and the sustain from one of Akim’s power chords still hanging in the air. The crowd holds their breath, and I sing:

  I’ll be there

  Then, one by one, Lola adds a harmony layer, then Jimmy T another, then Tristan; then Akim throws in a rumbling bass part:

  I’ll be there . . . I’ll be there . . . I’ll be there . . . I’ll be there

  Akim cuts into a sizzling solo, and everyone in the crowd thrashes about like it’s their last night on Earth. Veronica, Sung Li, and Zoe writhe and spin like they’re possessed, which only makes Akim, Tristan and me play even harder.

  Jerry does not dance.

  We play a dozen more songs, and the collective frenzy does not subside. By the time Lola finally calls out, “We’ll be back after a short break!” every member of the Featherless Bipeds, and just about everybody else at the Triple R, is drenched in sweat. During our smash-n-crash rundown of the last song, I pump the bass drum pedal so hard that it breaks through the drum skin. Oops

  — I’ll have to patch that up before our next set begins.

  Sung Li scrambles to climb the stage to get to Akim, then continues climbing him. Tristan jumps from the stage to meet Veronica. It’s as if they’re bonding chemically. Jimmy T inches over to Lola and puts his arm lightly around her shoulder. She shrugs his arm away and stomps off to the backstage room. The waitress behind the bar waves to Jimmy T, but this time he just looks away, and slumps along behind me down the steps from the stage to the floor.

  I walk over to where Zoe is standing with Jerry. Zoe is bouncing on her toes. She is glistening with sweat. I can almost feel the heat radiating from her skin.

  “Wow! That was soooooo awesome, Dak!” she cheers. “You guys sure have come a long way from you and Tristan making a racket in your dorm room.”

  As if she can’t contain the residual dance floor energy bubbling inside her, she jumps forward, throwing her arms around me.

  Jerry clears his throat. Zoe steps back from me.

  “Hello, Jerry,” I say to him.

  “Hello, Dick,” he says.

  “Dak, actually,” I remind him.

  “Hey, man,” Jimmy T says, stepping out from behind me, extending his hand to Jerry, “Is that an Alpha Beta fraternity ring you’re wearing?”

  “Uh, yes, it is,” Jerry says.

  “Well, then,” Jimmy T says brightly, “I guess that makes us brothers, eh?”

  “You’re an Alpha Beta?” Jerry says, tentatively shaking Jimmy T’s hand.

  “So was my father,” Jimmy T says. “You’ve heard of Bentley K. Tanner?”

  “Holy shit,” Jerry gasps, “our chapter’s Patron of Honour! Let me buy you a beer, man.”

  The two of them saunter off to the bar like true rent-a-friends. Jerry glances over his shoulder and probably realizes that he’s just left Zoe and me standing there alone together, but it’s to late for him to turn back. He and Jimmy T are “brothers”, after all.

  “Did you like that song we played when you came in?” I ask her.

  “You saw me dancing, didn’t you?” she says coyly. “I’m not sure Jerry liked it very much, though. I wonder why, hmmmmm?”

  “Hey, it’s not necessarily about him. It could, in theory, be about any jerk who doesn’t deserve you.”

  “Look, Dak,” she says. “It’s not like Jerry and I are getting married or anything, okay? I want to date lots of different people, to figure out what kind of person suits me best, to make sure I’m not just settling for the first person to come along like my parents did. And you promised you would let me do that, remember?”

  “I’m trying, Zoe. But I can’t make myself vanish.”

  “I definitely don’t want you to vanish, Dak,” she says, “but I don’t want to be smothered, either. And you didn’t have to dedicate the song to him. That was a bit much.”

  “Did I do that?” I shrug. “Well, in the next set we’ve got another new song I’m going to dedicate to you.”

  She sighs, swaying slightly.

  “Look, Dak, I’ve had a few Margaritas, and I need to go to the washroom. Do you think you can behave yourself until I get back?”

  “I promise,” I say.

  “And don’t talk to Jerry, okay?”

  “What makes you think I’d want to?”

  I watch her perfect behind as she walks away, then I climb back onto the s
tage to fix my bass drum. While I’m huddled behind my drum set, layering duct tape over the tear in the drum skin, Jimmy T and Jerry sit down with their beers at the table nearest the stage.

  “Where the hell did that prick go with Zoe?” Jerry wonders. “I’m gonna kick his ass any minute now.”

  “Well, wait until later, okay,” Jimmy T says. “We need him to play our last set of the night. Then you can have him.”

  It sure is nice of Jimmy T to look out for me like that.

  “Whatever,” Jerry says. From behind my drums, I can see him scanning the room with his squinty weasel eyes, but he doesn’t see me. “Lots of fine babes in this place,” he observes. “If Zoe wants to leave with that skinny prick, well, fuck her. Plenty of fish in the sea.”

  “I hear you, man,” Jimmy T laughs.

  “So, Tanner,” Jerry says, “Your band is kind of like one of those politically-correct government ads, eh?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know. In government ads, there always has to be at least one faggot, one nigga, and one bitch.”

  “Hey, man, watch who you’re calling bitch. Lola’s with me.”

  “Whoa, really? Well done, man. She’s got great tits.”

  “Well, thanks, I guess,” Jimmy says. Then he gets twitchy, wondering aloud, “So, uh, who in the band do you think is gay?”

  “Well, not you, obviously, ’cause you’re an Alpha Beta man, right? And not your drummer, because he’s always got a big hard-on for Zoe. And not the nigga guitar player, since . . . ”

  “Hey, Man,” Jimmy T hisses, “watch your mouth, wouldja? Akim’ll kill you if he hears you calling him that, and if Lola hears you, she’ll kick your ass for saying it, and mine for listening! She goes crazy about shit like that!”

  “Aw, come on,” Jerry says, “it’s just a word. Call me a honky. I don’t give a shit.”

  “Would you call Zoe a ‘nigga’?” Jimmy T asks incredulously. “I mean, her skin’s sort of dark, too.”

  “Hey, she’s not that dark,” Jerry winks, “Her skin’s more like a nice tan. Besides, I like the taste of dark meat every once in a while.”

  I am somewhat surprised by Jimmy T’s response. “You’re a dickhead,” he says, then rises from the table and struts away.

  Did I hear Jerry right? I stand up and march over to his table.

  “Excuse me, Jerry,” I say, through clenched teeth, “but I just overheard your conversation with Jimmy T, and . . . ?”

  “Was I talking to you? Fuck off.”

  He slides his chair backward, leans back. I lean forward with my palms on the table in front of him, and stare him in the eyes.

  “I think I overheard you say something about dark meat?”

  He stands up, steps around the table toward me. I straighten to my full height, locking my gaze on his beady weasel eyes.

  “Yes,” he says, “I said I like the taste of Zoe’s. It’s so sweeeeet — not that you’ll ever know. Now let me ask you something — how do you like the taste of your own blood?”

  He sucker punches me in the face. I hit the floor. He stands over me, his lopsided smirk radiating bravado. “Zoe told me how eager you are to get your ass kicked in her defense. She goes on and on and on about it. It got you stabbed once, didn’t it?”

  As I’m trying to get up off the floor, he kicks me in the gut, his toe digging painfully into the scarred-over stab wound. I crumple, and hit the floor hard. My mouth waters. It’s all I can do to keep from puking. My face pressed hard against the cold dance floor tiles, I see a blurred sideways image of Jimmy T and Lola pushing through the gathering crowd.

  “Dak!” Lola shouts.

  “Hey!” Jimmy T cries out, “He’s gotta play in fifteen minutes!”

  Jerry ignores him, takes a step toward me, pulling his foot back so he can kick me again. I grab his boot with both hands before it reaches me. Jerry hops around for a moment before tumbling against a table, sending glasses and bottles flying. We both scramble to our feet, circle each other.

  From a safe distance, Jimmy T shouts, “Come on, Dak! For chrissakes! We’ve gotta go on stage soon!”

  Jerry raises his fists to shoulder level.

  “By the time I’m finished with you, you’re gonna wish that knife had killed you, Dick.”

  “My. Name. Is. Dak.”

  CrackthudcrackthumpCRACK.

  Like a machinegun accidentally going off, my right fist strikes him five times. Jerry’s fingers grip at his spurting face.

  “AIEEEEEEE!” he shrieks, “AIEEEEEEEEE! I’m bweeding! You fugger! You bwoke my fuggig doze!”

  The crowd around us packs in tighter, like sharks drawn to blood in the water. Zoe pushes her way through.

  “Jerry! Dak! What in the . . . ”

  Jerry stomps past her, gurgling, “You wan’ dis fuggin’ psycho? You can ’ave ’im! I kin ’ave anybuddy I wand!”

  He bulldozes through the crowd and slams through the front door of the tavern. His car roars away in a spray of gravel.

  I’ve heard disappointment in Zoe’s voice before. I’ve even heard anger before, but never anything like this. She is screaming at me.

  “You think this is the way to get me to come back to you, Dak?” Her face is glowing, her hands slash at the air, her hair flies around wildly. “The first boyfriend I have who isn’t you, you start a fist fight? You think that’s the way to my heart? What the hell is the matter with you? When are you going to grow up, Dak? When?”

  “But, Zoe,” I stammer, the adrenaline roaring through my veins, almost covering the pain, making me tremble all over, “you, you should have heard what he said, about, about . . . ”

  I can’t bring myself to repeat it.

  “I don’t want to hear excuses, Dak,” she says, lowering her voice. “It’s even worse than what you did on our prom night in high school. Just when I think I’m ready to . . . aw, forget it. It’s never going to work. Never.”

  “But, Zoe, I . . . ”

  “We’re though, Dak. Don’t ever talk to me again. Don’t call. Don’t write. Don’t show up later tonight at my apartment looking all puppy-dog-eyed. I mean it this time. It’s over. We’re done.”

  The assembled crowd parts as she turns and strides toward the exit. The place is quiet as the door clanks shut behind her.

  The taxi is already pulling away when I reach the parking lot. I call out to her. She does not look back.

  I sit down on a concrete parking divider and stare at the empty space on the horizon where the taxi’s tail lights vanished. I stare at that spot for a long time, and everything seems frozen in space and time, as if somebody has accidentally hit the pause button on my remote control.

  Eventually, I become aware of Lola and Jimmy T standing beside me in the parking lot. Lola’s hand is on my shoulder.

  “Don’t worry Dak,” she says. “Jimmy told me what happened. We’ll help you get everything straightened out.”

  I can’t say anything. I just keep hearing Zoe’s final words. It’s over. We’re done.

  Tristan comes bounding outside, babbling as if his remote control has a jammed fast-forward button.

  “Dak! Dak! Lola! Jimmy T! I’m so glad I found you guys! We’ve got great news! Sung Li and Veronica were talking to one of the bartenders, and it turns out that he’s got a day job working as an assistant sound technician at, get ready for this . . . Big Plastic Records! The biggest independent record label in the country! Anyway, Akim and I have been out in the back parking lot talking to the guy, and he really likes the band, and he’s gonna mention us to, get ready for this . . . Billy VandenHammer! One of the best producers in the country! The one they call The Purple Messiah. Akim gave the sound technician his phone number, and he said he’d try to get VandenHammer to come out to one of our gigs! Isn’t that awesome, guys?”

  “Yeah,” Lola says. “That’s awesome, Tris.”

  “Actually, that is pretty awesome,” Jimmy T says.

  Lola punches him on the shoul
der.

  “Dak?” Tristan says, bouncing up and down in front of me, “Isn’t that awesome, Dak?”

  I can’t lift my head off my knees.

  “Dak? Dak?”

  Glass Half Empty

  Lyrics — D. Sifter, Music — A. Ganges, T. Low, D. Sifter

  (From the album Deaf Man’s Garage, recorded by The Featherless Bipeds)

  I will swallow this sadness before it ferments into bitterness

  I will savour the taste of the lingering pain of this loss

  Alone in this crowd I will practice appearing uninjured

  I will drink this glass empty and wait for myself to return

  I will drink this glass empty and wait for myself to return

  A man all alone’s like a baby that’s left to the wilderness

  In every dark stranger the glint of a predator’s eye

  I will swallow this sadness before it ferments into bitterness

  I will savour the taste of the lingering pain of this loss

  Alone in this crowd I will practice appearing uninjured

  I will drink this glass empty and wait for myself to return

  I will drink this glass empty and wait for myself to return

  SET THREE

  HELLO, THEODORE!

  The van speeds past a large blue road sign, which reads:

  THEODORE

  Population 1370

  The Buttermilk Capital of Canada!

  “Hello, Theodore!” Tristan hollers, “Are you ready to rock ‘n’ roll?”

  Akim imitates a frenzied crowd, shouting, “YAAAAAAAAUU UUGGHHHH!”

  Tristan extends his arm through the open window and flashes the Universal Rock ‘n’ Roll Sign (thumb, index finger and little finger extended, the two middle fingers folded over) to Jimmy T and Lola, who are speeding along behind the van in Jimmy’s Mercedes convertible. Lola and Jimmy T thrust their arms through open windows and return the salute.