I say nothing.
“Oh,” he says. “We’re always planning something.”
Amy lets out a disgusted hiss.
“Always,” he says. “New songs. New arrangements. New places to play: bars, clubs. We’re always planning.”
“You’re so full of shit. Why don’t you tell me?”
He bunches his face up.
Rolling my eyes, I brace for a full confession and the shitstorm that’ll follow.
“Girl,” he says. “We’re going to have lunch. Later, we’ll rehearse—you know, practice our setlist. Work out kinks. Maybe even try a new tune. Typical evening with White Heat. Nothing more sinister than that.”
Curling up her lip uncertainly, Amy moves to the counter.
“Now, I don’t know when we’re going to be back,” he says. “You know how rehearsals go. So why don’t we do this: if I get back early, I’ll call. You can swing by. But if it’s going to be one of those late-night straighten-things-up marathons, just come by tomorrow. Early as you want.”
“But you’ll call if you get back early?” Amy asks.
“Just told you I would. I’m not lying here.”
Something about the way he says that sounds vaguely cautious, as if he can’t lie to Amy without giving her a chance to see that he is lying. I half think she picks up on it, but that really doesn’t matter. It’s too late for her. We’re too close to being gone. We’ve one last gig on Friday. We’ll be in Chicago soon after.
Like you always said, Sammy, “Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
Chapter 9
This Is the End
—Scott—
“Jonathan,” I say, standing on the bumper of the yellow Penske truck. “That’s it, right?” I’m holding a pebble-skin black travel case. It’s gouged and duct-taped. The logo of White Heat is peeling off and hard to recognize. “I’ve got the mics right here.” Lifting the case over the bass bins and the Marshall amp, I stuff it into a milk crate full of power cables.
Gigs hardly pay enough to cover a rental, so we always go with the cheapest cargo van possible. But tonight we rented a ten-foot moving truck to figure out how much stuff we can take to Chicago. Our gear takes up the three or so feet, with room above. Means we’re leaving our beat-to-shit couch and probably all of our furniture behind. It’s all crap anyway. No loss. All we really have to have is our mattresses, clothes, equipment, stereo, vinyl, and CDs.
New city, new stuff.
“Sean and Marsha are already on their way, right?” Jonathan asks.
“Sure as hell better be.”
Standing next to the truck, he’s already dressed up as a junkie rock star: long hair, forehead all sweaty, ripped jeans, a tight T-shirt showing off his skinny chest and flat belly, a thick black belt covered in studs, and Dr. Martens with yellow laces. He does like his costumes.
I jump off the bumper and slam the doors shut.
The Main High’s a dump, but there and Crazy Mama’s are the two places we’ve played the most. We’re practically the house band at Mama’s.
I shove the nostalgia out of my head: Randal called earlier today. The loft is ready. Now we have to take possession by June first. We’ve five days to pack up and move. No time for bullshit.
Tonight’s gig is about not burning bridges. White Heat will never play another note after tonight, but we need their demo tape to get restarted, as well as their good references. No matter what we change our band’s name to, we’ll still be Scott Marshall and Jonathan Starks, with our reputations. We can’t escape that. Not yet.
“Amy’s not going to be there, right?” I ask.
“Said she had to work on some big project,” he says.
One less thing to worry about.
He climbs in through the passenger door. I pull myself up into the cab and fall into the driver’s seat.
“Last time,” he says, matter-of-factly.
“That it is,” I say, jamming the key into the ignition. The chunky plastic fob whacks the dash. The engine turns over, and the truck shudders.
“Let’s roll.”
The way’s familiar. I start us down Neil Avenue, turn right on King Avenue to High Street, and then right again, past the very end of the south campus bars. Crazy Mama’s appears on the left. We’ll go there one last time for shits and giggles. Now we’re driving through the Short North and all the galleries. We hit downtown, go past the Lincoln LaVeque tower, and then hit a rougher part of town: the South Side.
Jonathan’s been watching the closed stores and offices pass by. He has a wistful look on his face.
Right then I’ve the urge to punch that look off his face. There’s no room for doubt. Or regret. Not anymore.
“When should I announce it’s our last show?” he asks.
“Why do it at all?”
“Seems appropriate, don’t you think? A sort of eulogy show.”
“No. I don’t. We’ll know. That’s enough. If we announce it, do you think that Sean and Marsha’d play?”
“No idea.”
“They won’t. That I can tell you,” I say. “They’ll get pissed and refuse. And then we won’t play. One of our most important references goes bye-bye.”
“Guess so.”
“Come on. We need good recommendations to get started in Chicago. And not playing because we broke up right before a show is not a recommendation that will help.”
“Yeah. After the show then?”
“Not right after, but after we pack up and get home. Then we’ll tell ’em.”
“Yeah.”
“The loft is ours. We are leaving. Hard enough getting that done. Why make it harder?”
“Right. Got it,” he says. “We’ll know. They won’t. And they’ll leave like always, and we’ll leave and never come back. And yes, yes, I know—it’s for a reason. For our … ascension. Butterflies bursting from cocoons.” He taps his foot on the floor of the truck. “I got it. You’re right.”
I can feel his eyes on my face. I meet his gaze.
“Rock ’n’ roll, man,” he says.
“It’ll be a good show,” I say. “A great show. White Heat’s last.”
I pull the truck up to the back door in the alley behind the Main High and park. The back door’s open, and Sean’s leaning up against the wall. He flicks away a butt.
“Marsha said she’d be a few minutes late,” Sean says. “Got stuck at work.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Course.”
I unlock the back of the truck, and we start unloading. It’s great to be playing first tonight. Don’t have to deal with someone unloading as we’re loading and busting ass to make start time.
First come the big W-bins: two heavy black wooden boxes, each with a fifty-pound bass speaker nailed inside, facing backward. If the top of one were off, it would look like a W inside. They weigh an easy 150 pounds each. We’ve had these for years, and they are beat to hell, all gouged and scratched and covered with blotches from duct tape and stickers. I take one handle of the top W-bin, and Sean the other. We slide it off.
Jonathan climbs into the truck while Sean and I lug the first W-bin to the door. We carry the next W-bin through the doorway and to a curtain in the back of the Main High. Sean pulls it back, revealing the dinky stage. It’s a twenty-foot-wide by ten-foot-deep riser shoved into the back of the room. There’s a six-inch step onto the stage. We shuffle across the painted plywood with the W-bin. Light from two white floods pours onto the stage. Against it I can’t see into the bar. The jukebox is playing “Sheena is a Punk Rocker.” I can hear some shouts. Some laughing. Something hitting a table. I’m guessing the place is decently full.
Sean and I leave the W-bin on the far side, near where he’ll be playing bass.
All the monitors here are decent, so we don’t have to worry about setting up based on w
hich monitors suck the most or don’t work at all. Jonathan will have his keyboard in front of the monitor at center stage. Marsha and Sean each get their own. I can listen to myself in Jonathan’s. It’s small consolation for the fifty dollars, plus a buck a person with our flyer before ten, and the round of drinks we’ll get for playing tonight. Plus “the exposure” we’re always reminded of.
The worthless exposure.
Front stage, Jonathan puts down a crate of cables and an armful of mic stands. After Sean and I haul in the second bin, I head back for my Marshall amp. Jonathan sets up the three front mic stands and plugs the mics into the snake. Here a galvanized steel box full of connection slots with a thick cable that leads to the house soundboard. I’m taping cables down.
“Where the hell is Marsha?” I ask. “She still has a drum kit to set up.”
Sean shrugs. “Said she’d be here.”
“Here,” Jonathan says. “Let’s start setting her up.”
“Let me get my guitar handled. Be right over.”
I kneel next to my amp, unlatch the guitar case, and open it.
Picking my Stratocaster up, I take the strap and pull a ring at either end of it around a peg on the body. I hang the guitar on my shoulder. It feels good there. I run one hand up the neck and drag my fingers across the strings with my other, and a memory surges into me of the first time I played this guitar, my first brand-new one, in front of an audience right here. On this stage. That show kicked ass. Too bad you weren’t here to see it, Sammy.
I plug my tuning box into the bottom of the guitar and strum each string, tightening or loosening the pegs as the meter tells me. Then I plug it into my amp and set it in its stand.
Still no Marsha. She gonna no-show?
I grab the setlists and tape one on the floor in front of Sean’s mic, one in front of where I’ll stand, one next to the bass drum for Marsha, and one to the right of Jonathan’s stool, sideways, so he can read it sitting down.
“We’re done,” Jonathan says. “Well, as much as we can be without her. She’ll have to do the rest. Wow.” He shakes his head. “I’m glad Amy’s not coming to our—”
“Jonathan,” I say sternly. “Let’s get her stool set up. It’s right there.”
“Oh,” he says, alarmed. “Yes. Right.”
“Not coming where?” Sean asks.
“Last show,” Jonathan says. “Before we, you know. Try out … new… material. A new sound.” He turns to get the stool.
Sean frowns. He turns to me and shrugs.
“Have to ask him after the show. I’ll check out the crowd.”
I walk offstage and into the bar, hoping she hasn’t decided to make this the show she misses. We need this reference. Once I can see in the dark again, I look around the room. Most of the tables are full. Even the ones near the stage. Not bad for a Thursday, even though most of these people aren’t here for us. They’re here to get drunk. Or lucky. We’re the accidental soundtrack. But someday they’ll all say, “I was there that night.” The last time we played here.
Finally Marsha shows up. Even though she’s late, she took the time to get dressed up. She’s wearing black half boots, torn fishnets, a short black skirt, and a Bundeswehr T-shirt. Like Siouxsie Sioux, her eyes are kohled and her hair is dyed black and tossed around as if she rolled out of bed to get here. Fake JBF look. That’s her problem. She’s not Siouxsie Sioux. She didn’t just get laid. She was serving other people their dinners.
“Hey,” Marsha says. “Sorry I’m late. But it’s no trouble, right?”
“Nope,” I say. Not after tonight. “We’ll have to skip the sound check. What can you do?”
After helping Marsha with the last of her drum kit, the high-hat cymbals and tom-toms, I lock up the truck.
The bartender gives me a wave, and I hold up the setlist. He picks up the phone to call the sound man. This place only has a basic soundboard—four channels—so it’s useless for anything but blasting out sound straight ahead and controlling feedback.
Walking up to the bar with a copy of the setlist, I smell the stale beer and cigarettes.
Smells like ex-bands tonight.
Looking back at the stage, I see the band that soon won’t be: a Siouxsie Sioux waitress on drums, a hipster waiter patting his bass. And then there is the real talent, with long blond hair hanging around his face, walking his fingers down his keyboard. The one who’s escaping with me. Got that, Amy? With me.
The sound man taps my shoulder from behind. He’s an ex-biker and looks like it with his long hair, beard, barrel chest, and belly to match.
“Let’s have it,” he says.
I hand him the setlist. “Same as the last few times. Same order. Nothing fancy.”
“Yeah,” he says, glancing at the sheet. “I remember this. We’ll have to wing it without a sound check. Setting up late. Don’t come to me if you get wicked feedback.” His grin’s full of yellowing and crooked teeth.
“We’ve done it before,” I say.
“’Course, man,” he says before climbing up a ladder of wood boards nailed to the wall that leads to the sound booth over the bar.
Looking back at the stage, I watch the three of them running through their last preparations: tuning, feeling distances between drums and cymbals, and caressing keys. I imagine the opening of Apocalypse Now: the slow-moving helicopter is flying in front of the stage, and following it, huge plumes of fire are bursting up. Not at the edge of a jungle, but across the stage. I hear Jim Morrison singing “this is the end/my only friend, the end.” The napalm consumes everything from bass bin to bass bin: the drums, the bass, the guitar, everyone. Afterward, though, I won’t be in some hotel room in Saigon, drunk, waiting for a mission like Willard. I’ve given myself my mission. Chicago. With Jonathan. And a band. To get a contract.
I head to the stage and my Stratocaster. I put it on. It does feel good hanging from my shoulder and leaning on my hip. I switch it and then the amp on. I lightly touch a string. It hums, signaling Marsha to sit behind her drum kit, Sean to pick up his bass, and Jonathan to switch on his keyboard.
The Buzzcocks’ “Orgasm Addict” plays on the jukebox as Sean thumps each of his four bass strings.
The weight of the guitar’s neck in my hand, and my fingers pinning the strings to the frets, makes it feel like time to play. I give the final look at everyone. Our drummer nods. Our bassist nods. Jonathan takes a deep breath and unfolds his hands above his keyboard.
The lights dim. The jukebox cuts off.
In the sudden quiet, I pick out the opening notes of “Amy’s Face” on my guitar. My fingers gather speed across the strings. Simple drumbeats join. Then the bass line fills in the sound.
Strings jump, leap, and shimmer under my fingers. Our music fills the darkness beyond the lights. Right then, Jonathan’s fingers fall onto the keys and the song soars away. His voice, sonorous and urgent, erupts, joining the music:
Amy, come dance with me.
The music’s almost over.
I know your face,
Familiar as my greatest fear,
As my favorite fantasy
From a thousand lost nights
I’ll pretend to not remember.
For tonight you’ll be a stranger
Like those thousand times before.
Bodies writhing in the dark.
So won’t you dance with me, Amy,
This one last song.
We’ll be strangers meeting
That first time,
When everything’s unknown,
When every touch
And every thrust
Is like a madness—
A madness of our own
That can’t ever end.
And we can daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaance.
And they do dance. I can hear them hitting chairs, kn
ocking into tables.
The rest of the set unfolds until, eventually, the music stops. I hear applause. Whistles. Shouts.
For an encore, we play the song everyone comes to hear—“The Ritual.” The keyboard starts with a throbbing, whirling opening. I hear a few “Oh yeahs!” and whistles. Then I start my precise, relentless line. The bass joins, and then the drums. Tonight there’s a charge in the room—an urge to move, dance, and thrash. And they do, until our instruments fall silent. The only sound is their dancing, and then whistles and applause. I switch off my guitar.
There’s a crowd of dancers in front of the stage. I see a lot of them pumping their fists. With the lights in his face, Jonathan’s still got that otherworldly look: not completely here, not exactly someplace else.
In a moment, he comes back to the here and now.
“Thank you, thank you so much,” he says, his hands resting on his keyboard. “Especially since this is such a special night.”
“Don’t,” I blurt. “No! No!”
“Special because what you’ve just seen is the very last performance of White Heat. Scott and I start anew in Chicago next week. We’ll be in a new band with a new name. Then, when we come back, you can say, ‘I was there that night.’”
There are shouts, and a few calls for “one more.”
“Dumbass,” I say, yanking the cord out of my guitar.
Then she emerges from the crowd of dancers right in front of the stage—tall, with wavy dark brown hair to her shoulders, and blue eyes full of pissed-off—Amy.
Chapter 10
Sapphires Aflame
—Jonathan—
I can’t look away: Amy’s eyes blaze like two sapphires burning.
“So! Jackoff,” Amy shouts. “You tell a bunch of fucking strangers.”
Without the music from the jukebox, her voice carries through the Main High. The room falls quiet. The crowd from which she just materialized watches us: me standing behind my keyboard on the stage; her seething a few inches lower on the floor. From the very edge of my sight, I catch Scott stepping toward us.
“Oh, no. Not strangers,” she says, shaking her head violently, her hair fanning out. “Your audience. But me? You asshole!”
A Perfect Blindness Page 7