Scott pushes past me to the stairway. He bounds down the stairs, which look frail for his size. I’m soaking everything in first. Leaning on the handrail, I breathe in the smoky air: layers of cigarette, charred meat, and charcoal, with a hint of dope.
“Serious party.” I turn to the photographer. “Drinks?”
Gazing through the viewfinder of his camera at the crowd below, he says, “Kitchen. Downstairs.” The camera clicks and flashes three times in rapid succession. “All the way back. Grill’s outside.”
I climb slowly down the stairs, checking everyone out; I scan the faces for our hostess and host, Tanya and Randal, but I see neither, so I walk down the hallway. A redhead—maybe old enough to drink—walks by in a tie-dyed tube top dress laced with multicolored waves and gives me a playful cruise. Oh, I like this city. A lot.
The kitchen is crowded, but Scott’s easy to find, and next to him—the hostess. She’s looking good as always. Not that it’s hard for her—she modeled about a decade ago, in her late teens, and still has the looks: not quite six feet tall, with long, wavy light brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, her full figure poured into a tight-fitting flapper’s dress with fishnet stockings and high-top grandma shoes. She’s laughing.
Stopping almost in front of her, I stare, waiting for her to look up and notice I’m here. I like getting the surprised look that breaks into a smile, and then her dramatic hello.
I feel a hand tug on my shoulder. Expecting someone from Ohio, I turn to find a woman who’s moving me out of the way. She has distinctly Eastern European cheeks and nose, and spent time putting herself together: deep red lipstick; chestnut-brown hair, perfectly parted and falling across one eye; an apricot-colored scarf knotted off to the left; a dark brown velvet jacket; and a low-cut black top that exposes the perfect amount of her small chest. She raises an eyebrow at me and then sinks back into the party.
“Jonathan!” Tanya calls. “Oh my god! You did make it.” There’s the smile I love getting. It’s pure show—a special introduction for me. Everyone turns to look.
“Of course,” I say, playing along. “How could I miss all this? Six-hour drive be damned.”
“Come here, come here,” she says.
I slide through a few people and reach out for her. She grabs me, and we kiss each other’s cheeks. Tanya’s the sun around which everyone’s social life spins, so the chatter has gone quiet in anticipation of my introduction.
“Everyone,” she says, “Jonathan. From far, far away. Came just for this little party of mine.”
I give a quick wave.
“Now, who have you met?” she asks.
“Well …”
Scott mimics taking a photo.
“Ron the photographer, of course,” she says. “Now, weren’t you looking at someone?”
Near Tanya, I see the Eastern European–looking woman, and I nod at her. “We weren’t formally introduced.” She strikes me as, somehow, out of place.
“Oh, my,” Tanya says, arching her eyebrow. “Michele, Jonathan. Jonathan, Michele.” Then she shakes her head in theatrical disappointment. “We really have to do better than two people.”
Letting slip a smirk, Michele turns to the sink, which bristles with wine bottles plunged into ice.
“Well, to start,” our hostess says, pulling the shoulder of a woman to get her to face me more completely, “AnnMarie, Jonathan.”
AnnMarie has a dark brown bob, cat-eye glasses, and is good looking in a funky-hip way, yet she isn’t sexy, in spite of the skimpy, tight-waisted Jane Jetson dress she’s wearing. “You two have a lot to talk about. But”—Tanya raises her finger—“it’s business. So not until later.”
She turns to a pretty, androgynous blond. “This is Kenny. Kenny Magnum. One of Wendy’s boys. She’s around here someplace.”
“Wendy’s boys?”
“Oh yes. You’re a foreigner,” Tanya says. “She’s a founder of Les Femmes. The modeling agency. She’s trying to rent him out to go look pretty in front of cameras. But enough for now. You have a cocktail to get.” She points to the sink. “There is a selection of white wine, white wine, or white wine. So, hurry up. Randal wants to see you too. He’s out back tending the fire.”
My time in her spotlight done, the talking resumes, and I head to the sink. Scott pushes himself next to me.
“Like back home,” he says. “Including your red carpet intro.”
“I’ve known her longer.”
He rumples his nose. He’s always had a problem with appearing second. In all our bands, I’ve been the lead singer and the keyboardist, and always the person people recognize first, so whenever he can, he makes a point to say he plays lead guitar and the band is both of ours.
I get it. But it’s not like I’m trying to steal the thunder.
Lifting a bottle out of the sink, I feel that same thrum inside I always do at her parties. Here even more so, as everyone is totally new. Any of them could be a lover, friend, fan, band member, or A&R person—the artists and repertoire executive we need to get our recording contract. It’s all newness and possibility, and so far from Columbus, everything I am there vanishes. I have no weight to carry; I can choose to be anyone I wish. It’s as if all my mistakes have been washed away or been forgotten and traded for all this possibility.
That Eastern European–looking woman, Michele, is talking to Tanya, giving me the chance to really look at her. Then it clicks; what’s so strange about her is that she’s here at all. Tanya is the star of the gang. No one outshines her, and everyone depends on her somehow—even the host, her longtime beau. A girl can be beautiful as long as she is young and inexperienced. Everyone here depends on her to get into the right places or to be introduced to the right person. That’s how Michele doesn’t fit. She’s no young girl. Looks to be in her late twenties like me. She’s like Tanya’s inverse. Tanya was a catalogue model for J. C. Penney and Sears a few years back; she is good looking in a curvy and suggestive, yet safe, suburban American way. Michele doesn’t have the curves; her body is long, slender, and almost smooth. There’s nothing remarkable about her face. But with the way she has put herself together, she looks as if she fell, moments ago, out of a glossy ad for some expensive, impossible-to-pull-off, edgy couture. She looks like a woman who really doesn’t exist, except in magazines. Amy’s like that, except Amy walked straight off a page of some highbrow erotic novel.
I can’t imagine why Michele was invited to the party. What do you have that Tanya could want?
“You always talk to yourself?” AnnMarie asks, stepping into my gaze.
“Talk to myself? Oh, that. Yeah, all the time,” I say. “Always say it’s the reason I’ve never been mugged. Thugs think I’m crazy.”
“Insanity defense. Like that,” she says. “I should use it myself.”
“Be my guest. Just don’t start talking back.”
“Right,” she says. “By the way, Tanya gave me your demo tape. Very post-punk: Joy Division.”
“Get that a lot. Or Bauhaus.”
“Sounds like the last few bands I gigged with. When are you going to play Chicago?”
“No idea. Takes connections in a big market like Chicago.”
“Not really,” she says. “Only seems like it. I’ve been playing around in this town for years. I know about every place you can play. Here, Milwaukee, West Bend, downstate. All you actually need is good demo tape. Like yours.”
“Aaaah, I see what our hostess meant about business to talk about later. What’s your axe?”
“Drum machines. Delays. Sing backup.”
“So you know your way around sequencers, patches?”
“Not bad. But I’m no geek.”
“I wish I knew more. I’d love to move on. Change our sound.”
“To?”
“Not sure. New Order, RevCo, the Cure. You know: ‘Blue Monday,’ ‘Attack Ships o
n Fire,’ ‘In Between Days.’ Or not. Just ideas floating around in my head.”
“Well, I’m available if you need help here,” she says. Then she drinks, pushing her cup up and up, and then down, and she scowls into the emptiness.
“Ooh, seems we’ve a problem,” I say. “Not to worry.”
Scott is standing by the sink, and I wave, holding up my cup. “Hey, Scott!” Getting his attention, I point at her and then my cup. I hold up two fingers.
“You’re the lead singer,” AnnMarie says. “That’s obvious. And keyboards, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Lead guitar would be?” she asks, nodding her head at Scott.
“Yup.”
With the three newly full cups in his one hand, he’s gliding through the crowd, spilling nothing. This ease of movement seems impossible for his size; he’s big, even intimidating, yet supple—a moving contradiction.
He pulls up to us, snapping his scuffed, thick-soled black shoes together.
“Now, about that business our hostess mentioned,” I say. “AnnMarie here knows everyone we need to know to play Chicago. Every place around too. And … she plays. Drum machines.”
“Choice. What’s the scene like here?” he asks. “I mean really.”
“Pick up a Reader. Pick any night of the week. Three, four, five shows. Shows that you want to check out.”
The photographer has strolled over, and they start talking about places he’s shot bands and that she’s played around here: Lounge Ax, the Beat Kitchen, the Double Door. But when Cabaret Metro is brought up, the tone gets reverential. Every band that matters has played there, both national acts and hot local bands. To play Metro is to matter.
As they talk, I imagine playing Cabaret Metro. The stage unfolds before me: the wood of the stage floor, cables snaking across it, duct tape, monitors. I’m about to sing. Standing behind my keyboard, the lights washing away the audience, I can hear them chanting the name of the song I’m about to sing: “Amy’s Face.” My heart starts to pound. This is why we came, Amy. Get it now?
“Cabaret Metro,” I say, raising my hands up as if I’m about to play my keyboard. From the corner of my eye, I catch Michele watching. I strike the keys in a furious opening chord for her, but she’s already turned away as if she’d never glanced this way. That’s such an Amy move.
“Mister photographer!” Tanya calls out, having made her way next to Scott, “Wendy says she’s got some new boy to shoot.”
Ron makes a slightly sour face. “That’s fine. But I’m still working out Charlene’s comps.”
Right then, a woman starts toward us. She’s not tall—about five feet five—and wears her hair slicked back like Rudolph Valentino’s.
“Hello, Wendy,” Ron says to her.
“I know you’re all hot to shoot Charlene,” Wendy says, standing in front of Ron insistently. As short as she is, there’s no question as to who’s in charge. “Don’t worry. That’s a done deal. We’re working out the time. But meanwhile, here’s someone else to shoot. Come here, Kenny,” she says, waving over that pretty blond boy with hazel eyes and a slight build. With makeup and a skirt, he’d make a good-looking girl. He reminds me of David Bowie from the seventies—boy or girl, depending on what he wanted someone to see.
“This is Kenny Magnum,” Wendy says. “He’s got talent but needs a portfolio. From a pro like you, not the usual amateurs. He’s more flexible than Charlene right now; she’s working a couple of jobs on spec, so she’s busy.”
The photographer looks the girlish boy over. “I can see it. Sure, Wendy. What I really need is a reliable studio. Someplace I can stash my lighting equipment. Without having to worry about it getting ripped off.”
“We’ll get that worked out on Monday. And, if I can finally convince her”—Wendy pulls a woman out from behind her, where she’s been hiding—“Jennifer here. She needs comps as well.”
Jennifer is slender and slightly built, a sylph in cutoff shorts and black nylons, though no one would mistake her for a boy. She’s Eurasian, with slightly rounded almond-shaped eyes and a button nose with a small piercing I can’t quite make out. She looks young—a college kid.
“I’ve seen you around, right?” Ron asks.
She nods.
“Yes,” he says. “You work at Les Femmes. In Wendy’s office.”
With a deadpan expression, she nods again.
“Real Chatty Kathy out of the office.” He turns back to Wendy. “Okay, Monday. Let’s set up Kenny and Charlene. Let me know if the mute here wants to shoot. Great look. Could get her places.”
“Hey, Ron,” Scott says. “Tell me more about Metro.”
“Why don’t you two just move here?” Ron asks. “Find out all you want about Metro, firsthand.”
It’s a simple question that I’ve no answer to.
Scott goes quiet.
Why don’t we? Columbus is going nowhere. Chicago’s huge. It’s got what we really need. We have Tanya and AnnMarie.
Scott gives a never-thought-about-it shrug.
“You should,” Ron says.
“You know Tanya can hook you up with an apartment,” AnnMarie says. “A job. Anything. I know the scene. Plus, I need a new band to play in, and you’ll need a drummer, right?”
I look to Scott and start nodding, and then Scott nods, and our nods go faster and faster until I know we’ve decided. We’re moving to Chicago.
“All right.” Ron grabs his camera and fires off several flashes at us with our arms around AnnMarie. “There, I’ve you documented from the start.”
I’ve no idea what I’ll tell Amy.
Chapter 2
Heading Back
—Jonathan—
The next morning, a couple too many cocktails last night have left me feeling rough. Scott’s driving us back to Columbus, which helps, but the sun’s still out to torture me.
“You know,” Scott says, “we can’t tell anyone about this. Not yet. Not anyone in the band. No family. Sure as hell not Amy.”
I let out a groan. Oh must you? Now?
“We’ve a lot of plans to make. Can’t afford any problems. Any drama.”
“Drama?” I ask, regretting it immediately. I need to play too sick to talk so I can think things through.
“Yeah, like being stood up for a gig by Sean and Marsha. Who are not coming with us. Like the melodramatic tantrums Amy’ll throw. Like parents getting all in our stuff. Every one of them trying to convince us to not go. To trip us up. Keep us down there. With them.”
“Why …” Would you do that, Amy? Hold me back?
“No one wants to be left behind.”
I really need to think here, man.
“Columbus is a cow town,” Scott continues. “Chicago’s the next step we need to take. Must take. Or else we’ll end up getting old and dying here, playing in cover bands for a few bucks and free drinks. No. That’s for people who can’t. We’re people who can.”
“Sure. Right,” I say. “Yes. You’re right. You are.” I curl up as much as I can, trying to get him to shut up for now. “I’m not feeling well. Let me settle my stomach.”
“Gonna boot?” He points into my footwell. “There’s an empty bag there if you have to.”
“Right. Thanks.”
I twist my head away from the sunlight and close my eyes. I know Scott and I have to move. We’ve gotta get out of that place to get our shot—to grab everything we’ve been busting our asses for. For years.
But without Amy?
In the quiet, Scott flips on the radio and “The Theme from S Express” comes on.
“Could you,” I say, undulating my hand downward. “Just a little.”
He turns it down: a little.
This should be so simple: Move. Grab the ring. Be what you talk about being. In Chicago—a real town. A serious market.
/>
My eyes pop open.
Hold on. That could be a promotion for her. A more prestigious market. So she can move. Sure she will; it’s a promotion. She can even live with us at first, till she finds her own place.
“So,” I say. “If she moves in with—”
“No!” Scott bellows, the sound of his voice ringing around the inside of my headache, making it more intense.
I grab the sides of my head.
“Amy? Not living with us. No chance in hell.”
“Yeah, okay, okay. Just thinking out loud. Forget about it.”
“This is for us.”
“Right. Got it,” I say. “Where’s a puke bag?”
“Down there.”
Reaching down, I start pushing the trash around the footwell. I knock over a crumpled burger bag and then see the Chicago Magazine we snagged for home. It’s lying open to a photo that peers through a kitchen doorway at a party full of people drinking; the scene looks very much like the party where I met Amy four and a half years ago. It was a Friday, in early May like today, after work, during the only time in my life I almost had a real job, back when Scott and I were so broke it hurt. Nothing had gone like we’d planned. We’d gotten our degrees like the Ps wanted and then devoted all our time to playing. We’d figured that was what had been holding us back: full commitment. We had part-time waiting jobs to cover rent and electric. But after we gave it everything we could, all our band Arcade Land did was leave us more broke than we’d been in college. Scott had to give up his gym. We were down to eating ramen noodles, and whatever was in the discounted dented-can and bent-box bins next to the cash registers. The money got so meagre. The next step was to move back home.
Since I could type fairly well and use a ten-key calculator, we decided I’d get a regular daytime job to keep nights free, and he’d keep working on the band for us.
I took the only job offered: a temp.
It was as if I had died.
Alarm clock at seven. Car at eight ten. Cubicle at nine. Every place was the same: “Do something with this piece of paper and then something with that one.” Lunch at noon. Back to the cubicle at one. Glance at the clock until it’s four, and then stare at it in order to drag the small hand down with the sheer weight of my eyes, until it nearly touches the five, then push the big hand up from the six at four thirty, past the seven, the eight, the nine, the ten, and the eleven, until at last it touches the twelve, freeing us all. Five o’clock! Chairs go back, jackets get snatched, lights go out, and the parking lot drains of cars. On Fridays, five o’clock turns magical, filling the room with excitement. No one is nearly nodding off, everyone’s feet are tapping, fingers gently rapping desks until the hour has struck, granting freedom for days.
A Perfect Blindness Page 2