by Jeff Gomez
Further down the street he notices a huge Starbucks where there used to be a small Italian restaurant he and Laura would go to whenever either of them had cash, which wasn’t often. The BP gas station is gone, replaced by a new one with the same green and yellow colors, only now it’s called El Cheapo and has a banner across the front that reads DISCOUNT CIGARETTES. Mark pulls over and parks. There are parking meters everywhere, which hadn’t been the case when he was growing up.
Turning the corner, he sees Heck Music on the far corner sandwiched between a tanning salon and another gas station. This is where Mark’s parents bought his first guitar and where he later took lessons from an ex-hippie in an upstairs room filled with boxes of sheet music.
He walks up the street to where the Scene used to be. Mark already knows it’s out of business. The first question he asked Dave when he was contacted about the reunion show was whether or not it’d be at the Scene. Mark thought it’d be fitting since that’s where Bottlecap played their first and last shows. But Dave told him it had closed years ago. Besides, the reunion was a benefit and they needed to raise some cash. Even after Bottlecap had gained a local following and could easily sell out the small club, they never earned more than a grand playing there.
Halfway up the block, he sees the new sign which reads JAKE’S BAR AND GRILL. Underneath this it says TAP BEER. Where kids used to line up to see bands, there’s now an outdoor patio with chairs and tables. Mark approaches the front window and leans against the glass, cupping his hands around his eyes to see inside. He sees two pool tables and an ATM machine. Lit neon signs for Coors Light and Budweiser hang above the bar where the last employee is washing mugs for the next day. In the far corner, he sees four booths packed into where the stage used to be.
They turned my youth into a sports bar.
Mark walks back to his rental car. As he leaves the downtown area, the road quickly turns residential. Looking from side to side, Mark recognizes certain houses from when he lived in the area—the modern one he was always curious about, the one on stilts so it’d have a view of downtown, the mansion he never envied. After a few turns, he sees it. The fourplex apartment, the last place he lived in Kitty before moving away: 121 South Euclid. He parks the rental car where he used to park his own car all of those years ago.
It looks exactly the same: red brick with white widows and black shutters; two white columns supporting a shingled awning with a black door and a black mailbox; two stories, four apartments; two upstairs, two downstairs. His was the one on the bottom right. The only thing he doesn’t recognize is a wooden enclosure on the corner of the lawn for three trashcans and two blue recycling bins.
The blinds are down, but he remembers the layout. The large window in the front, to the right of the door, was the living room. The smaller window next to this was the front bedroom. That’s where he kept his guitar and amp, along with a desk and an old office chair he’d found downtown and rolled all the way home.
All of Bottlecap’s songs were written in that room. It’s also where he designed all of their early records, fliers, and T-shirts. He later used those skills—after the songwriting royalties from the first big Bottlecap record dried up—to go to New York and get a job designing book covers for Rodney & Co., a publisher in downtown Manhattan. He’s now worked there for almost twelve years. He’s lived in his rent-controlled studio apartment on the Upper West Side for nearly ten.
The last time he was here was before the band left for Los Angeles. They’d just returned from a short tour and, in just a few days (not that they knew it then), they’d be leaving for LA. Just a month after that, he’d be walking out on the band, on his friends, and the chance of a lifetime. That whole sequence of events was put into motion in the apartment he’s staring at.
That period now seems so fraught with significance and yet, at the time, it was just another day. The record deal had come to him so easily he thought it’d be just as easy to get another. They were young—early twenties—and had only been a band for a few years. It was just a hobby. No one expected much from it, so when it turned into something more, no one knew how to act. Mark wished that those days had had a sign on them saying DON’T FUCK THIS UP. THIS IS IMPORTANT. But they didn’t. And because of that, that time in his life—when it was happening—looked like any other and he didn’t have the wisdom to treat it any differently. There are days you waste and days you savor, but when you’re in the moment, you just don’t have the wisdom or perspective to tell the two apart.
The headlights of a car coming around the corner flash in his eyes. For a few seconds, all he sees is yellow. But then the scene returns. His old apartment. His home town. He’s back.
It begins.
2: My Forgotten Favorite
It’s ten in the morning and Randy’s in his room trying to buy a ticket for the Bottlecap show. He types DARK STAR LOUNGE into the Google search bar on his beat-up MacBook, misspelling lounge twice. When the results come back, he has to squint to see. Randy knows he needs glasses, but he’s too cheap to buy them. Glasses would cost a hundred bucks. Squinting’s free. Besides, if he had that kind of money to spend on anything, he’d spend it on his teeth. His gums are swollen, it hurts when he chews, and he’s had six teeth pulled in the last ten years. If he ever has extra money it’s going into his mouth, not his eyes.
He tries to click on the first link, but the trackpad’s cracked and there’s dirt and grime collected in the corners. It takes Randy three tries. The laptop was cutting edge technology when he bought it brand-new just two years ago, breaking his bank account in the process. Now it feels heavy and thick as a brick compared to Cody and Hunter’s MacBook Airs. When Randy was a kid, computers looked like microwaves and had keys the size of sugar cubes. Now they’re nothing but a screen the thickness of a fingernail and keys smaller than Scrabble tiles.
Everything’s getting thinner and faster, while I just get fatter and slower.
The screen finally loads. He clicks on the calendar and adds one ticket to his cart. Then it asks him for his credit card information.
Shit.
Randy doesn’t have a credit card. He’s applied a dozen times, but his credit’s so bad he’s always turned down. He even tried once with this sketchy outfit he saw on a billboard, run by a check-cashing company in Puerto Rico, but even they wouldn’t give him one. So he uses his debit card. After putting in the digits and hitting PLACE ORDER, he does the math in his head.
He had $82 in his checking account the other day. Since then he’s bought a few groceries, gas, cigarettes, and lunch at the food court during his Bookstorage shift. Deduct the cost of the ticket, and he’s got about $20 until next payday.
He writes a quick note to Charles. Corporate asshole or not, he used to be a friend and Randy doesn’t have a lot of those now.
Chipp ;-)
Just bought my ticket for the Bottlecap show. Make sure you do the same. Hope you’re well, motherfucka.
R
Randy then clicks over to Facebook. He sees that Bottlecap’s old label is posting photos of them from back in the day, playing at the Scene as well as other clubs around Virginia. Randy looks for himself in the crowds, but can’t find his face among the blurs in the front row. A few clicks later he discovers that someone’s uploaded the first couple of Bottlecap singles—the ones you can’t get anymore—onto YouTube. As the music starts playing—“I’ve been talking to Stephen Hawking, and he says it’s not in the stars for us”—all of those years come back to him.
He remembers living with Charles in that apartment downtown. Everything in it was stuff they’d found on the street. The coffee table was two milk crates taped together. Pizza boxes stood in for shades. The fridge was only sporadically filled, usually after they’d cashed paychecks from whatever menial jobs they worked at the time. What they bought back then are things he still buys—Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Chef Boyardee Ravioli, Top Ramen.
Everything back then revolved around the weekend: what band to see, wh
ose party to go to. Randy found out that as he got older it became reversed—everything was about the week. Monday through Friday people went to work, had meetings, did business. The only thing people his age do on the weekends is have brunch. Randy hates brunch.
The Bottlecap song ends, so he clicks onto another.
“The people who think I’m shit are starting to outnumber those who don’t.”
Randy remembers this one, too. He remembers Bottlecap playing it at shows where he knew half the people in the crowd. When it ends, he can see that the same person’s also uploaded songs by the Disappointed and the Deer Park—the other bands who are playing next week. Randy hasn’t heard this music in decades. He clicks from video to video, group to group, song to song.
Wanting to share this with someone, he pauses the video and listens for the guys. Even above the music coming out of their laptops, Randy can hear Cody and Hunter typing in the kitchen. He grabs his laptop and opens the door, smarting at the fluorescent light from the kitchen. As Randy approaches, Cody and Hunter don’t respond; they just keep on typing.
Randy places his laptop onto the center of the kitchen table. It lands with a thud.
“I want you guys to hear this. This is the kind of music I listened to when I was …” He can’t quite bring himself to finish the sentence by saying your age. “It’s a local band. From the nineties.”
The first song’s barely begun before Cody peers over the top of his laptop and says, “What is that? YouTube?” He says the word as if a skunk has just sprayed his face.
“What’s wrong with YouTube?”
Hunter says, “Cody hates YouTube.”
“What?” Randy pauses the video. “Why?”
“You ever read their terms of service?”
“Of course not. Why would I—”
Hunter cuts off Randy by saying, “Cody prefers Vevo.”
“Vevo, what’s Vevo? I’ve never even heard of that.”
Cody and Hunter laugh.
“Maybe he thinks you mean Vimeo,” Cody says.
“Will you guys stop? I’m trying to talk to you about a band. Don’t you care about music?”
“I like music.” Hunter raises his laptop. “Look. Music.”
Randy listens. The sound is nothing but electronic chirps and beeps. No lyrics, no guitar, no drums.
“That’s not music,” Randy says. “That’s a CD player malfunctioning.”
“CD player.” Cody stifles laughter. “Who has CDs anymore?”
Randy wants to say I do, but he doesn’t since his stereo’s been out of commission for six months and he hasn’t had the cash to fix or replace it. Instead, he says, “I don’t even know what bands you listen to. Who do you like?”
“Spotify,” Cody says.
“Pandora,” Hunter says.
“Those aren’t bands, you guys, those are websites.”
Cody lowers the screen of his laptop slightly. He never does that. “These days,” he says, “websites are bands. Think about it. Four guys get together. Each one has a different talent or skill they bring to the group. They pick a name, come up with a concept, produce a product, and launch in their hometown. If it’s a success, they expand to the rest of the world. Everybody loves them and they become rich. They’re on the covers of magazines and people wear T-shirts with their logo.”
Hunter points to the Napster T-shirt he’s wearing.
Fucking Hunter.
“And when a site gets too big,” Cody continues, “or too commercial, no one likes them anymore.”
“Like Yahoo,” Hunter says.
“Exactly,” Cody says.
“Do you think all this makes you better than me?” Randy’s close to exhaustion. He should still be sleeping. If he were, he wouldn’t be going through this. “We stood in line for concert tickets. You stand in line for phones.”
Cody picks up his iPhone. It’s the latest model, top of the line. It looks like a smaller version of the monolith in 2001.
“Have you seen my phone?”
Randy grabs his laptop and storms out of the kitchen, heading back into his room. He slams the door.
Maddie’s dentist has the same medicinal smell that Charles has hated for forty-five years. What makes it worse is the slightly sweet smell that underpins the acrid. No matter how hard they try to make their goop taste like bubblegum or blueberry or birthday cake, it’s still fluoride. It’s still disgusting.
Charles is sitting in the waiting room while Maddie gets her teeth cleaned. Behind the front desk, a receptionist fields calls about appointments and questions about insurance. From the other rooms Charles hears drills, muffled voices, and the white noise of suction.
Even though Charles hates going into the office late—whenever he gets in past ten, he’s sure that everyone’s looking at him with raised eyebrows—he feels immense pride being out with Maddie. Even for mundane things like this. Especially for mundane things like this. Charles figures it’s easy to take care of Maddie when he’s taking her out for ice cream, or to Disneyworld. Stuff like that may make him a hero in her eyes, but that’s not what being a parent is all about. Parenting is the boring stuff—running errands, doctor’s appointments. That’s when he truly feels like a dad.
In his twenties, Charles fancied himself an artist. He did a bit of writing and was into music. He and Randy even started a magazine. One of his favorite writers back then was F. Scott Fitzgerald. To this day Charles thinks of his short story, “Babylon Revisited,” especially that moment at the end where the narrator says that “nothing was much good” besides his daughter. It didn’t mean much to Charles at twenty, but when he thinks of those words now—and how he wants to keep Maddie close to him for as long as he can—he shudders. He doesn’t want to be one of Fitzgerald’s distant, drunk dads. Charles knows he’ll never be as good an artist as Fitzgerald, but he has a chance to be a better father.
Maddie comes bounding out of the office.
“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! No cavities!”
As Charles bends down to scoop her up, her forward momentum almost knocks him down. She’s getting too old to be picked up. This is a tragedy for him. He used to sing her to sleep in the crook of his arm, and now she’s almost too big to lift.
“Oh, sweetheart, way to go. I knew you could do it.”
As he returns her to the ground, she hands him a bag containing a travel-sized container of toothpaste, a mini reel of floss, and a new toothbrush.
“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you to school.”
In the car, Maddie says from the backseat, “They wanted to give me a toy, can you believe that? Like I was some kind of little kid. As if!”
“You used to love the toy chest.” Charles smiles. “I remember one time Dr. Lawrence let you pick out two things. I’d never seen you happier.”
Maddie kicks the back of his seat and says “Dad” in a way that connotes he’s the biggest idiot on the planet. Then she turns serious. “Daddy?”
“Yes, darling?”
“What if you can’t come up with the money?”
Charles digs his fingers into the steering wheel.
“What are you talking about, sweetie?”
Maddie now has her feet on the armrest between the two front seats. Grace never lets Maddie do that, but Charles doesn’t mind. She says, “I heard you and Mommy fighting this morning after that man with all the tools on his belt left.”
The contractor who’s going to fix the roof stopped by to talk scheduling. The schedule looked fine. The problem was money. When the contractor left, Charles and Grace fought in the kitchen about the cost and where they were going to get the cash. They thought Maddie was upstairs.
“Darling, listen to me.” Charles speaks slowly and with confidence, trying to also convince himself. “We’re going to be okay. We just need to fix the house a bit, and—well, it’s going to be expensive.”
“But you’re going to pay him, right? We’re not going to have to live in a broken house, are we?”
/> At a stoplight he finds her eyes in the rearview mirror and sees fear. This kills him. He has always wanted to protect her, and that look in her eye means he’s failing.
“Madeline, darling, I promise.”
Charles pulls up to her school. The kids are at recess and Maddie instantly spots a pack of girls to which she belongs. On the way to office to sign her in, he insists on a kiss goodbye. Maddie begrudgingly delivers one so rapidly Charles doesn’t believe it really happened. It hurts his feelings that she’s so embarrassed by him.
Maybe if I were cooler. Maybe if I had hair. Maybe if I were a celebrity.
He watches as she’s greeted by friends. It’s all smiles and laughing as they run off, getting lost in the crowd. Charles knows that this process is going to be repeated. He’ll lose her first to college, then some strange city, and finally to a husband, a family, her own life. The idea fills him with equal amounts of terror and pride.
By the time he gets to work, it’s practically time for lunch. He pulls into the Trust parking lot and begins circling around until he finds a spot. He hustles into the building, hoping he doesn’t pass anyone from the sixteenth floor on his way in. Up on twelve, Dylan sees him and grins. He points to his watch, a Rolex.
Cocksucker.
Charles passes by Brooks’s office and sees him hunched over his keyboard typing away. The keys make a plastic clicking sound. That noise didn’t exist twenty-five years ago, yet that’s now the soundtrack to the world. He waves as he passes. Brooks waves back.
Charles enters his office and sits down. As he logs into his computer, Jack from Sales walks by and waves. Charles nonchalantly waves back. For all Jack knows, Charles has been here all morning. He grins, feeling like he’s getting away with something. He checks his email, hoping to see something from Tom or at least from Tom’s assistant, Heather, about scheduling the meeting Tom mentioned. But instead there’s just a bunch of crap from different departments bugging him about stuff. Delete, delete, forward to someone else to handle, delete. He clicks over to Gmail and notices there’s a message from his old friend, Randy. It looks like Randy has gotten a ticket to the concert next week. Charles is about to buy a ticket of his own when the office phone rings. He can see from the caller ID it’s Tom’s assistant. Charles clears his throat and reaches for the phone.