I examine how I look as I say these words: hard. As I need to be.
“I should’ve known better. Should never’ve taken that call. Never said yes. When you asked to come. Never shoulda trusted you again. You came here to destroy. To trip me up. Make me fall.”
“Oh, no, not me.”
“Just go. You can’t fix it now. Only break it more. You’re better in dreams—a memory to fondle. See, sometimes it’s best to just walk away.”
I keep repeating these lines to myself in the mirror until they sound as impervious as I feel. Then I hear a melody weaving itself around my anger, hardening around lyrics I’m saving for her. Humming the melody, I rush to my keyboard and write my thoughts down as lyrics while the wound’s still bleeding. The words exhausted, I turn on the keyboard and plug in my headphones. Rereading the lyrics, I hum the melody playing in my mind and make my fingers repeat it, and I keep reworking it until Scott opens the door. I notice the time: nearly three hours since I left Dreamerz. I watch him walk in and then stop at the hunched silhouette of Amy on the couch.
He points his thumb at her, shrugging his shoulders like “What gives?”
“Too drunk to drive. Letting her crash till morning.”
“Going to bed,” he says, and then he walks off into the shadows at the far end of the loft.
I rework the music and the lyrics until I have to shake myself awake every few moments. Turning off the keyboard, I lay my head down and close my eyes.
There is only the sound of the traffic below.
• • • • •
The sun’s begun seeping between the buildings of Chicago, probing the loft with a soft, pink-orange light, when I wake slumped over the keyboard, my back stiff as stone. I drag myself to my mattress and collapse. I haven’t the will to even take off my shoes.
When the sound of Scott talking wakes me again, the loft is full of bright, clear light pouring through the windows.
Suddenly I remember Le Moloko. I shoot up in bed, trying to clear the haze from my mind. What day is it? Friday. Right. It’s Friday. I work lunch Friday. Today. Okay. What time is it? Where’s the clock?
The clock reads ten fifteen.
Twenty-five minutes to make it to work.
I toss the covers off and stand up. My back’s killing me. I look over at the couch.
It’s empty.
“Didn’t say good-bye,” I mumble. Why would you?
Scott hangs up the phone.
“Who’s that?” I ask.
“Got called in to cover a shift. Hell, they know I’ve got a double tomorrow. I need a day off soon.”
“Did you see her leave?” I ask.
“Nope. Gone when I got up.”
Stretching out my back, I remember my new song and walk to the keyboard. I turn the sheet so I can read the lyrics. Along the edge, Amy wrote a note:
Jon–
It’s all a mess.
I’m sorry it’s like this. I’m like this. We’re like this.
I don’t know how to fix anything. I don’t think you do either.
Farewell, my love,
Amy
Below she drew a heart with a sad face in the center.
We finally did it. Killed it dead. It hurts. Like I’ve never felt before.
I let out a weary sigh. I can’t think about this anymore.
“Time we just walk away,” I whisper.
“Hey,” Scott says. “That a new song on your keyboard? What are you calling it?”
“Just Walk Away.”
After I get back from working lunch, Scott leaves to grab a bite to eat before rehearsal, leaving me alone with “Just Walk Away,” which has harried me since I woke up. Sipping bitter instant coffee, I try to reread the lyrics but keep looking at Amy’s note.
Helluva mess is right. No fixing it. Not anymore.
I copy the lyrics onto a new page and fold up the copy with her note. I kiss it, and the realization of what we’ve finally done makes me want to rip it up—to burn it—but it’s the last thing of Amy’s I’ll ever have. I slip the note into my back pocket.
After rereading the freshly copied lyrics, I change nothing and write “‘Just Walk Away’” in big letters across the top.
That done, I switch on the keyboard and tap out what I can remember of the melody from last night. It flickers back. My fingers gambol over the keys, and the melody, free from my memory, starts slowly dancing around the loft. Then it demands more, and my left hand joins the music. A darker thread comes to life—the true sound of the words. With this the song congeals. I feel the music now; it’s as if I were still standing in the bathroom, watching myself glare back from the mirror.
I realize Scott has returned only after he’s taken his Stratocaster off the stand, slung it over his shoulder, and started playing along. For the first time, I start singing the lyrics. Now I hear how the rhythm will work. Then comes the sound of the chorus.
We keep repeating “Just Walk Away” until it feels hard and real.
Suddenly he stops playing. “Hang on. Listen. Somebody’s at the door.”
Silence rolls around the loft as my fingers slide off the keyboard. I watch him opening the door. The other two members of the band, Nancy and AnnMarie, push in, followed by Lynda, her curly red hair flowing back over her shoulders.
“Jesus, guys,” Nancy says, her smile slightly wider than usual. “We’ve been out there forever. Couldn’t you hear us pounding on the door? I understand getting into your work, but, um, we’re part of the band too. How about letting us in on it?”
“Damn good, no?” Scott asks.
“So we’re working on that first, right?” she asks.
“We’ve got a show a week from today,” he says. “Eight days. Including tonight.”
“I want to work on that song to start off,” I say, “even if to only sketch out the chorus and drums.” I need to get it out of my head. I can’t live that moment much longer.
“Fine,” he says. “If it doesn’t work quickly, we need to move on.”
Right then, Ron arrives with a twelve-pack, his camera slapping his chest. Scott pulls a bottle of vodka from the fridge, pours two fingers into a glass, and drops in a few ice cubes. He tips in some soda and gives the cocktail to Lynda.
“So. You remember how much I like beer.”
“How could I forget? You’re going to help with my technique because of it.”
The door groans open again, revealing Randal, Aryan blond and lithe, in his usual boldly striped shirt and skinny, straight-legged jeans.
“Would you look at what the cat dragged in,” Scott says.
Stepping in, he looks around approvingly. “Well, well, well. You are fixing the place up after all.” He shakes Scott’s hand.
“So what brings you here tonight?”
“Well, it is my building,” he says. “More important, I understand there’ll be some free music.”
“Sit your ass down on the couch. Ron’s got beverages.”
“Where the hell have you and Tanya been?”
“Long story,” he says. “Total buzzkill. Later.”
“Drummer Girl,” I say, “listen to this.” I play the melody, humming the rhythm, marking the time with the nod of my head. “See what I’m getting at?”
“Sure,” she says, taking out her sticks.
Nancy slinks over to her mic and machines.
“Nancy,” I say, “I don’t have the sound of the chorus down quite yet.” I hold the lyric sheet out to her. “Read it. You two do something with it. You’ll understand better when you hear it.”
In a half hour, everything is in its place: drums, chorus, and melody. By midnight we’ve decided to use “Just Walk Away” at the Sound Kitchen to finish our set.
• • • • •
In the three days be
fore our first performance as Mercurial Visions, I lose myself in my mindless job at Le Moloko, writing and mailing the press release for the show, and tightening up the songs on the setlist. All the while, I avoid being around people as much as possible; I don’t go out for drinks, and I eat my meals alone, at the loft. Not because I’ll run into Amy in the bars as I would have in Columbus, but because I won’t. I had to go through leaving her once already. This time is worse; we broke something I hadn’t realized I’d counted on when I moved here: that she could be here—that we could be. Somehow.
Now that’s gone too. This—the finality—I can’t confront yet.
I go to my keyboard and play the whole set through again and again, determined to be amazing at the show, as if by playing well I can make everything right.
How? That’s impossible to explain, even to myself.
Chapter 25
Coffee to Make You Sleep
—Jonathan—
On the day of Mercurial Vision’s first gig in Chicago, Scott has to work lunch, which leaves me with all the packing.
Early in the afternoon, I test each mic, every cable, and my keyboard before packing it away. After writing out setlists for everyone, I call Ron to confirm the time he’ll be over with his hearse. I have everything ready long before anyone’s due to arrive, so I stand in the window, looking south at the Loop. Memories of Amy slip through my mind. They slide past in a montage. I feel panicked as these fragments of her and who we were pile around me.
I run to the box that holds my keyboard, kneel in front of it, and pull apart my careful packing. I quickly set it up and start playing “Just Walk Away,” turning the volume up to push these thoughts away. Eventually I slip away from the memories and unanswerable questions, and I’m alone again. I start playing songs I’ve heard recently on the radio, first “Need You Tonight,” and then “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” “Faith,” and “Never Gonna Give You Up,” which I stop playing as soon as I recognize. I immediately switch to “Red, Red Wine” to wash that song from my mind, along with Scott’s eyes looking at me in the mirror.
Right then Scott arrives home from work.
I feel off kilter, yet I keep that to myself and hope to settle down before our first show as Mercurial Visions.
After we snag gyros and fries at Friar’s Grill, AnnMarie arrives. Within minutes, Nancy follows, and then Ron shows up with his black ’73 Cadillac hearse. Once we load it up, I ride shotgun, and we go about ten minutes in silence.
“You’re awfully quiet,” he says.
“Yeah. I get like this before a show sometimes.”
“Heard about the drama at Dreamerz,” he says. “I was upstairs watching some shitty band.”
“Didn’t miss much.” It’s not as if he’d understand how much I’ve lost. “Mostly just sucked.”
“She’s out of her mind,” he says.
“No. She’s not. Not really.” Then I sigh, stuck, as always; I’ve never been able to explain her or us in a way that made much sense. “Scott’ll tell you she is. But he’s wrong. The crazy—that’s all part of the … of a … game. It’s not real. Might look real. Needs to look real. But it’s play. Make-believe. Real lover, make-believe drama—passion squared.” This is as close as I’ll ever come to explaining her or us.
“Right,” he says, letting his voice drop off to silence.
What I need to tell him, tell someone, is that tonight, for the first time in I cannot remember how long, I’ve no lover, even imagined, for whom to play “Amy’s Face,” “The Ritual,” or “Just Walk Away.”
What’s the point in playing with no one to sing for?
We turn the corner onto Division Street and, in a couple of blocks, pull into the alley behind the Sound Kitchen. Arriving first, I head in to let the manager know we’re here. The storefront bar has booths along one long wall. People sit in only one: three guys and a blonde with high hair. They talk, oblivious to everything around them. All along the opposite wall is an old-time Chicago bar, heavy with deco-shaped slabs of wood, rounded billowy mirrors, and liquor bottles lining glass shelves. High stools run the whole length of the bar; five are occupied. Square Formica tables with chairs fill the area past the bar, and tucked in back, at the far end, a shallow, square stage sits empty in the darkness. A slender alley runs alongside it—the way to the bathrooms.
I hate setups like this—people walking in front of us all night to piss.
“It’s a start,” I remind myself. “In Chi-town.”
At the end of the bar, I find the manager hunched over a liquor order. He’s fortyish with hair touched by gray and a paunch, and he’s dressed in jeans and a button-up shirt. Looking up, he tells me we’re to play first, which means we have plenty of time to set up. Tearing down is another matter—we have twenty minutes. We can park along Division. The pay—“fifty bucks and one round of drinks: draft or well liquor.” He goes back to checking his order.
We spend the next thirty-five minutes setting up in the twilight and deep shadows of a single yellow spotlight. We run a quick sound check. Scott plays with the six stage lights, finally deciding to leave them all most of the way up. With the half hour we have left, we grab a table near the stage and get drinks. We have to pay for these; the free ones come after we play.
This leaves me time to wonder for whom I’ll be singing—not the audience, but the one I’m trying to convince I sincerely feel what I’m singing.
Then Chris arrives with Wendy and Jennifer. They walk over.
Jennifer’s showing up pleases me unexpectedly well.
“Make sure you sit up front at one of these tables,” Scott says, pointing to the four right in front of the stage. “Nothing’s worse than playing to empty seats.”
Aside from the three of them, there are only thirteen people in the place, including the bartender and manager.
Drawing circles on the tabletop with her finger, Jennifer has a distracted look in her eyes, as if there’s some other place she’d rather be. This makes me feel as though I should apologize that she’s here to watch us, or for her friend getting thrown off a balcony, or for what Amy said at Dreamerz. And then I remember how wounded Amy looked when she accused me of loving Jennifer, and how that accusation has burned up the last chance Amy and I will ever have; and now I think Jennifer should apologize for that. Or I don’t know what.
I tell Scott I’m going to recheck my equipment.
Onstage, pretending to check my keyboard over, I see Lynda walking to the table. A few moments later, Kenny arrives, though I don’t recognize him until he gets to the stage and hellos Scott; I thought he was a girl.
Fifteen whole people. Hell of a first time out. A lot like Ohio.
After spending the next few minutes trying to remember what it was like to play before Amy, I realize can’t. Then Nancy, Scott, and AnnMarie step up onstage. I feel completely naked here. I see our friends at the table. I see Jennifer.
Well, Jennifer, you’re the closest thing to Amy I have tonight—the altar upon which we were sacrificed. Tonight I’ll perform for you. Only hope you understand. It’s all true. Every word.
Feeling the thread of excitement that stretches from my belly down through the backs of my legs, I crack my knuckles and then look over the gap in front of the stage for dancing, and the tiny audience, with everyone we know sitting at the first two tables—the only people who care that we’re onstage. Nodding, I check the setlist, and then after I check where Jennifer’s sitting one last time, I notice a guy with long blond hair, tow-white eyebrows, and a red beard standing almost next to the stage as if he’d suddenly materialized there.
Where the hell’d you come from?
Right then, the stage lights come up.
I spread my fingers and drop them onto the keys. Music flies out over the audience; layers of drums, guitar, and voices follow, flowing around me.
I begin to sing, the worl
d fading away until only Jennifer, I, and the music exist. Now I’m untouchable, infinite—beyond any care—as I’d been with Amy when we devoured each other, piece by piece. For song after song, this delight holds, but then the final note of our closing song, “Just Walk Away,” slips from my fingers. As it continues thrumming in my body, I hear clapping and blink away the flash from a camera. I wish I could keep playing, never stopping, forever.
The stage lights fall; I can see that even the bartender is clapping. The man with the three-color hair raises his hand up, extending his pinky and forefinger.
I don’t do this to please you; I do it to have a reason to wake up, to keep from wrapping my belt around that chandelier. To keep breathing. Amy, you showed me that.
That stings.
The manager has walked over, and I overhear him talking to Scott.
“Impressive,” the manager says. “Truly. Look, a band canceled the Saturday after next. Would you be interested in filling in?”
“Absolutely,” Scott says.
“Meet me after you’ve broken down. We’ll talk,” the manager says.
I start breaking down the keyboard and mics and pack them in their scuffed-up road boxes. As we clear the stage, the next band is lugging in their own boxes and crates, piling them near the entrance. A tall, lanky guy with bad skin and blond dreadlocks says, “Great sound, man. Too bad the crowd sucks.” He keeps walking a crate in.
“Thanks. Better than when we started,” I say, carrying my keyboard case out into the dark, stuffy alley.
Once we finish packing up the hearse, Scott and I head back in to talk to the manager.
“Nine days. Saturday,” the manager says. “Midnight. Right before Acumen Nation. You’ll need to make some fliers. Here are the names of all the bands. Put ‘Free before 10:00 p.m. with this flier. Five dollars after’ on it.”
“Great. We’ll be here.”
“Now, it’s fifty bucks, plus a buck a person you get in here before ten with your flier. So make sure you put your name across the bottom.”
“All right—fliers with our name at the bottom,” Scott says. “Lots.”
“The fifty bucks for tonight,” he says, handing Scott a white envelope.
A Perfect Blindness Page 16