by Lewis Shiner
It was true. Cole’s guitar sounded fuller, his vocals sweeter, than they’d ever sounded before.
Gary said, “I’ve been waiting a long time for this. I’ve been coming here since I was a sophomore and my parents had to drop me off and pick me up. Now… now kids are coming to see me.”
He couldn’t remember Gary ever making a speech of that length that didn’t have some kind of implied criticism in it. “I can dig it,” Cole said.
A tall, skinny blond guy came up to the stage. “Are these women yours?” He hooked his thumb toward the entrance where Janet and Holly had appeared. Cole hadn’t known Holly was coming. The pleasure he felt contained the thrill of danger. “Well, one of them is,” he said wistfully. The Studio Club was couples only, no stag, no drag, so all females had to be accounted for.
The guy waved them in, then offered his hand to Cole. Cole had to lean over to reach it. “Duncan Engler. I do the light show.”
“I’m Cole.” Cole’s attention was impaired. Janet was in a yellow dress with white flowers, cut low enough to attract stares. Holly was in a knit dress with wide black and gray horizontal stripes that covered her from neck to below the knee, following her contours in a way that invited imitation. Her skirt was so tight that she had to place one high-heeled foot directly in front of the other, making her hips sway and reminding Cole of the Mexican piropo, «Si cocinas como caminas, me como hasta las miguitas.»
Cole vaulted down from the stage and crossed to the girls’ table. Janet stood up to give him a hug and a kiss. He nodded awkwardly to Holly and she nodded back.
Janet did most of the talking while Cole tried not to stare at Holly. One of Janet’s teachers had falsely accused her of talking in class and it had left Janet in a weird mood, unable to get past it. Cole told himself that trying to get Holly alone for two minutes was a lousy idea, yet every time he glanced at her she smiled and looked down in a way that made him think she might be interested.
At 7:30 the house lights dimmed and 20 minutes later the couples started to arrive. Cole’s right leg began to bounce, like a runner’s, waiting for the gun. He was turned inward, gathering himself, and could barely follow Janet’s monologue. When she finally got to a stopping place, he stood up, kissed her, and said, “We’re on in a minute. I’ll see you at the break.” He winked at Holly, a move that didn’t feel as spontaneous as he’d hoped, and made his way toward the front of the room. The others were just getting up from the band table, and they quietly filed onto the darkened stage, switched their amps off standby, and gently touched their strings to make sure they were live.
The Studio Club, Cole thought. Holy fucking shit.
They all nodded to Alex, and Alex said, “Good evening, Studio Club!” Applause, whistling. “We are The Chevelles, and we are here to make you dance!”
Gary counted them into “Just Like Me” by the Raiders, organ and guitar hurling slow, descending chords against a ringing cymbal bell, then Cole’s grinding, irresistible guitar line propelled the kids onto the dance floor. This early on the club was barely a quarter full, and most of the guys still had their jackets on, trying to look cool. Some of the women were already on fire. A stacked brunette rolled her hips like she was working a hula-hoop, one hand buried in her own hair. A tall, elegant blonde bent forward at the waist, bit her lower lip, and slowly closed both eyes. A skinny girl with light brown hair had both arms in the air, swaying like a houri. Cole wanted them all. His desire was boundless and indiscriminate and he poured that longing into his solo, stepping around the mike stand to put the toes of his boots off the lip of the stage.
At that point the light show cut in. Cole finished up his lead and turned to look. Random, scratchy home movies invaded by oily tendrils of green and yellow that pulsed in time to the music. Cole nearly forgot his guitar part, then the sheer weirdness and coolness of it seized him and took him even higher.
The gig was the standard four sets, eight to midnight, 15-minute break each hour except the last. By 9:30 the place was at capacity, dancers backed up against the stage, jackets off to reveal a sea of white shirts, the air musky with perfume and hairspray and Right Guard and sweat. The band was on, hitting the harmonies and keeping the rhythm tight, egging each other on, loving the moment, the lights, the crowd, the songs.
At the end of the second set, Cole, high on hormones and delusions of power, made his move. “You want some Cokes?” he asked the girls.
Holly shrugged and Janet said, “I suppose.”
Cole swallowed his misgivings and said, “Holly, you want to help me carry them?”
Holly looked at Janet. Janet looked at Cole. Cole smiled and opened his hands like it was no big deal one way or the other. Janet finally shrugged and Holly got up uncertainly. Cole walked away, leaving her to follow or not. He got in line and Holly said, “What’s the big secret?”
“I wanted to know… if I could call you some time.”
Up close, her eyes were quite extraordinary. Cool, gray, intelligent, self-possessed.
“Why?” she said.
It was a bad start. Cole couldn’t see any way other than forward. “I think about you a lot,” he said. “There’s just something about you, I don’t know. I want to get to know you better.”
“Intellectually speaking?”
Only two people in line ahead of them now. Cole panicked. “That too,” he said.
“That too?” Holly said. “Oh wow, you’re making a pass at me. Janet was afraid you might pull something like this.”
Only one guy ahead of them. “I’m not pulling anything,” Cole said.
“Janet’s my best friend,” Holly said. “She’s in love with you, and I can’t believe you’re doing this.”
“Three Cokes,” Cole said to the girl at the bar. Sweat was pouring down his ribcage.
The girl waved away his money. “You’re with the band.”
Cole tried in vain to think of a way out. “Look, I’m sorry I said anything. I think you’re fantastic, but I’ll keep that to myself.”
The girl at the bar passed over three paper cups full of crushed ice and Coke. Cole tried to hand one to Holly, who didn’t want to take it. “What about Janet?”
“Excuse me,” said the guy in line behind them, who looked like a lineman for the Highland Park football team. “Can y’all maybe settle this somewhere else?”
Cole fought down his urge to get in an argument with the guy and stepped out of line. “I don’t really know where things are with Janet at the moment.”
“Well, Janet seems to think she knows where things are, so maybe you need to enlighten her.”
She took one of the cups and walked away. Cole hurried after her. At the table, Janet looked from Cole to Holly and back again. “Was it fun?” she asked. Cole had never heard her resort to sarcasm before.
“Less than you might think,” Cole said. Before Janet could ask the next question, he said, “We sound good tonight, don’t we? The acoustics here are amazing.” It’s come to this, he thought. I’m quoting Gary Travis for small talk.
Janet searched his face. He saw doubt and pain in her eyes and, against his will, he thought about Mexico and the smell of lavender. He vowed that he would not let her see his guilt and he banished everything from his head except the sight of her.
She was the first to look away. “Yeah. You sound good.”
The conversation limped along. Cole dragged it forward, Janet grudgingly did her part, and Holly sat out. After ten agonizing minutes the time came to play again, and Cole practically bolted to the stage.
In the middle of the third song, Janet stood up and pushed her way through the dancers to stand in front of Cole. She was furious. She pointed one finger at him, ominously, then she and Holly walked out.
As she went through the door, Cole stepped up to the mike, right on cue, and sang, “This could be the last time…”
Had it been anywhere but the Studio Club, any night but their debut there, he might have gone after her. Five seconds later
he told himself that it was better this way, that she would cool down overnight and apologize tomorrow.
The next song was the Temptations’ “I’m Losing You,” and Cole wondered if it was true, if his infidelity in Guanajuato was something he could never put right, even if Janet never found out.
Next up were The Byrds, and as he sang, “And I’ll probably feel a whole lot better when you’re gone,” he watched the short brunette shimmying again with boundless energy, and he wondered what it would be like to not be tied down, to go from girl to girl like Alex did.
And so he tortured himself, song by song, as if he were a captured agent in some malarial prison, all the joy and swagger of the first two sets gone, his eyes stinging when they did “She’s Not There.”
At the break Alex asked, “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“What happened to Janet?”
“Holly had to get home.”
He stepped out the back door into the alley. His sweat turned instantly to ice water and the shock brought him back to reality. Two guys he’d never seen before were standing with a girl who looked like she was about to burst out of a red prom dress, her makeup streaked and runny.
“Hey!” one of the guys said. “Y’all are outta sight. You’re the best goddamned band in Dallas.”
“Thanks,” Cole said.
They all looked a little drunk, and his suspicions were confirmed when the girl handed him a silver flask. “Little something to warm you up?”
“Why thank you,” Cole said. “I don’t mind if I do.”
He’d just taken a nip when the door banged open. He instinctively hid the flask under his jacket until he saw that it was Gary. He put the cap on the flask and handed it back.
“What are you doing?” Gary said.
“Nothing,” Cole said.
“You stupid idiot, are you trying to get us fired?”
“Why don’t you mind your own business?”
“This is my business. It’s all of our business. If you screw this up, you dickhead, that’s it for me. You can count me out.” He slammed the door on his way inside.
“He always like that?” the girl asked.
“Pretty much,” Cole said.
“He could use to loosen up some. You want another snort?”
“Nah,” Cole said. “I better get back. Y’all take care, now.”
He crowded into the men’s room and threw some water on his face. Ignoring the other boys around him, he looked at his reflection and rapped on the mirror with one knuckle. “Anybody home?” he asked under his breath. Apparently not, not anybody with a mind of his own. Whatever other people thought of him was all that counted. If Janet was angry, even unreasonably, he felt like a shitheel. If Gary yelled at him, he felt guilty.
However, that small shot of whiskey had perked him up. I don’t have to take shit from anybody, he thought. Not as long as I can make people dance.
The last set was mostly classics, “Shake” and “Shout,” “Money” and “Louie, Louie,” and “Land of a Thousand Dances.” Through sheer willpower, he put everything else out of his mind and concentrated on the girls dancing, his only goal being to whip them into an even greater frenzy.
They played two encores and then the house lights came up, that moment of truth when the sweat stains and the liquefied mascara and the collapsed hairdos became glaringly obvious, when nothing remained to cover the ringing in the ears, when exhausted leg muscles had to find the strength to work the pedals for the drive home.
They tore down the equipment in ten minutes, by which time the club was nearly empty. Alex’s date du jour waited by the door and the stacked brunette nursed a cup of Coke at a table by herself.
Evidently Cole had not had enough trouble for one evening. “What happened to your date?”
She smiled tiredly. “We had a disagreement about what was going to happen after we left here.” Her eyes were a little small, Cole thought, and her nose was a little large, but her mouth was just right. “I guess I’ll call a cab. It’s only a couple of miles down Preston.”
Cole looked at Alex. “You going home with me?”
Alex pointed at his date.
“I can give you a lift,” Cole said to the girl. “We need to load the equipment first.”
Her smile got bigger. “I’m in no hurry.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Frances. Everybody calls me Frankie.”
As Cole drove down Preston, she sat with her back against the passenger door, one leg folded on the seat, watching him.
“You go to Highland Park?” Cole asked.
“Until May. Then I’m off to nice, safe, conservative Duke. You?”
“St. Mark’s. Then ut.”
“I wish I was going to Texas. But Daddy doesn’t want me to get corrupted. If he only knew.”
“You’re some kind of dancer.”
“I can’t help myself. I hear music and it just takes me over. You guys are really good, and your drummer—he’s got a beat like a bad cold, you can’t help but catch it.”
Cole gave her a wry smile. “I’ll let him know you liked him.”
She kicked him gently with the leg that was on the seat. “Nothing against the rest of y’all. You play a hot guitar and you’ve got a great voice. But I suspect you’ve already got a girlfriend.”
“That remains to be seen after tonight.”
“What’d you do?”
“Flirted a little.”
“Hell, nothing wrong with a little flirting. Long as it don’t get out of hand.”
“I’d ask you to explain that to her, but I expect that’d only make things worse. What about your boyfriend?”
“Patrick’s so used to having everything his way, he forgets somebody else might have a way too. I’ll probably forgive him, though, because he’s got a sweet little gto. Take a right at the next corner.”
The huge houses had columns in front and long lawns that sloped down to the street. Frankie directed him to a cul de sac and said, “It’s the second house, but don’t pull in the driveway, or Daddy’ll be out here with more questions than Dave Garroway.”
Cole cut the lights and turned off the engine and coasted to the curb in neutral, to see what would happen. What happened was that Frankie straddled him, arms braced against the seat on either side of his neck. “Thanks for the ride home, cowboy.”
Cole kissed her. Her mouth was, in fact, just right, soft and yielding, sweet from Cokes and Juicy Fruit. Her coat was open and he put his hands on her waist and then slowly moved them up until he was holding her breasts, and then he was rubbing his thumbs against where he hoped her nipples might be, somewhere beneath her extensive foundation garments.
She moved her lips to his ear and said, “Easy, cowboy, or I’m not going to want to stop.”
Cole saw the future branch into two paths, and for once he chose the one without the oncoming bus. He shifted his hands to her waist and pulled his head back so he could see her face. “What if I wanted to call you sometime?” he said.
She took a lipstick out of her purse and wrote a number on his left hand. “Private line,” she said, “so you don’t have to talk to Daddy.”
He kissed her again, more gently, and she opened the driver-side door. “You stay here,” she said. “It’s better that way for all concerned.”
“G’night, Frankie.”
“Sweet dreams, cowboy.”
She ran up the long, curving driveway, heels clattering against the concrete, and Cole waited until she was inside and the porch light was off before he started the car.
As he drove away he called himself 17 kinds of idiot for not having her right there on the front seat. By the time he got home his feelings had changed to a kind of relief. Their differences would have been unavoidable after sex, and if he was doomed to see himself through other people’s eyes, at least he’d ended the night with a beautiful girl feeling desire and wistful affection for him.
And if he changed his mind, he did have her phone num
ber.
*
Starting in late March, St. Mark’s kept the chapel doors open for the morning assembly, leaving Cole unable to focus on the mandatory hymn singing for the noise of the birds and the smells of feverish growth—mimosa blossoms and cut grass and bright green cottonwood leaves.
He and Janet had weathered the Studio Club crisis, and in the aftermath the balance of power had shifted. Cole had maintained a wounded innocence. He felt the credit he’d earned by not having sex with Frankie was enough to cover his other sins, though he didn’t attempt that argument with Janet. Within a week she’d called him and they’d had a passionate reconciliation in the hearse.
Both Cole and Alex had taken their senior option to drop athletics and leave every day at 3:10. They blew the bonus hour at Preston Record Center or cruising North Dallas. Once a week or so they took their acoustic guitars to Lee Park, where the changes that had swept London and New York and Amsterdam and San Francisco had finally begun to creep into Dallas. The marble steps in front of the Robert E. Lee statue had become the epicenter for the kids who designated themselves “freaks,” boys with hair long enough to get them expelled from school and thrown out of Goff’s Hamburgers, girls in Indian print dresses, the occasional furtive joint, guitars and bongos and wooden flutes. Cole and Alex, having changed into jeans and T-shirts in the hearse, would sit cross-legged in the grass and play a few Beatles songs. They’d draw a crowd of ten or fifteen people and sometimes the girls would dance. If anyone asked, they’d mention the band name and their next gig. Alex might collect a phone number or take one of the girls behind Arlington Hall for a quick make-out session, an “audition” as he called it. The girls who passed might get asked out a few times.
One of the kids in their class had surfed one summer in LA, and Cole kept thinking about the way he’d described it. It was like he and Alex had paddled out to where the big wave was building, and worked hard to stay in front of it, and now it was starting to pick them up and carry them. They didn’t have time to look back to see how huge and powerful it was, they could only fight to stay upright and let it take them as far as it wanted to go.