Fully Automatic (Bullet)

by Jamison, Jade C.

  He almost told her the girl in the bed might have been a lot of things, but she was not his lady friend. He chose not to. Brittany seemed nice enough.

  He went back in the room and managed to get another hour of sleep before she woke up. And when she did, she gave him a real ride that helped erase the strange memories of the night before.

  * * *

  Brad declared the tour a success. They had a few more Facebook fans, but they’d sold lots of merchandise (they’d need to order more t-shirts) and the crowds were wild. It invigorated him, refreshed him, made him want to try twice as hard to push the band to new heights. He wanted to make sure his bandmates felt the same fire burning inside, and so he called a meeting.

  He had other things he needed to discuss, and he’d already laid the groundwork, but he had to have them all on board before moving forward. This meeting would tell him what he needed to know—was Fully Automatic fully committed, or did he need to draw up a new game plan?

  “Guys, we just finished something huge. Did we make a lot of money? Hell, no. If you’re feeling like me, you’re tired and can’t even begin to settle back in. I’m sorry about that. But I hope that taste makes you hungry again. I feel like we’ve just kinda been sittin’ on our laurels the past few months.”

  Val nodded, but then he saw a shadow cross her face and she frowned. “In all fairness, Brad, I haven’t stopped writing. I’m constantly coming up with new stuff.”

  “Yeah. I give you that. Hell, we’re all doing some writing. I don’t think that’s the hard part.” It was time to get down and dirty. He was going to have to say some things people didn’t want to hear, but he was tired of feeling like he was carrying the heavy load. It was time to get their attention. “But how many of you are contributing around here?” Ethan acted like he wanted to say something, so Brad wanted to nip it in the bud. “I’m not talking about doing the shit on the chore chart. That just keeps you in. I’m sayin’…how many of us—myself included—go around promoting our shows, trying to sell advance tickets? How many of you guys ever even log onto our Facebook page and post to our fans? Did you guys know we actually have over five hundred fans?”

  Zane asked, “Fuckin’ serious?”

  Brad nodded. “Yeah. But we can do better. Val and I are busting our asses earning extra cash for if we need it. Don’t want a job? Fine. Then represent us…on Facebook. Get a Twitter account going. Make flyers and pass them out around town. Ethan, you have that fuckin’ sick computer and software, and I’ve seen some of the shit you can do. You should be all over that. But then get the word out there. Talk us up. Find new cool merch for us to sell. That’s a steady stream of money, even when we play free gigs. But I can’t keep doing it all, guys. I book us the shows. Help me out.” There. He’d said it. He’d been feeling like he was the only one trying. He knew it wasn’t true, but there was so much the other guys could be doing, and he hoped his words settled in, even if they felt defensive about it at first. He could see in their eyes that they were taking him seriously, taking his words to heart, so he continued. “I’m not saying the music’s not important, but if we don’t do this other shit, no one will care what we’re writing.”

  Zane added, “We need to record more of our stuff too.”

  “That we do, so why don’t you find a place for us to record on the cheap?”

  “On it.”

  There was one other thing he had to say, and his feelings had become evident after having his own room on the road for more than a week. “As for our living arrangement…I just can’t take this anymore. It’s too close, too tight. I feel like I’m constantly on top of one of you motherfuckers. I need some space. This just ain’t cuttin’ it.”

  Zane nodded. “Agreed, man, but you know the price of rent. No fuckin’ way we’ll survive here in separate apartments.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. You guys know we’re on a month-to-month here. I found a three-bedroom apartment. It’s more than what we pay here, but I don’t give a shit. I can’t do this anymore. This new place is also unfurnished, meaning we’ll have to buy our own stuff, but these bedrooms will fit twin beds. That means we’ll all have a real bed. I need that, guys. I really do.”

  “Yeah…that’d be nice.”

  Everyone seemed to be in agreement, so he kept going. “A lot of the shit we’ll need we’ll have to go to secondhand stores to get or buy some of that cheap-ass assembly stuff at Walmart, but I need this. You guys already got some money from the past two weeks, right? I socked away the rest. We actually made a lot, even after the motels, gas, and food were taken out, and I think it’ll get us started. Well, you know what I mean. Not tons, but enough.”

  Ethan finally spoke. “Do it, man. Do it. You want me to do shit on my computer? If we had a bigger place, I could find a spot to set it up and actually do something.”

  Brad smiled. “That’s the spirit.” He made the call and they started packing that day and moved the beginning of the following month. Seeing the solidarity of his friends when they knew he needed it most told him everything he needed to know. Fully Automatic would move forward with their current lineup, and they’d be better than ever.

  * * *

  Before they moved, though, Brad got confirmation that Val and Jet were continuing their relationship past the tour. Hell, Jet even helped with part of the move. He didn’t know why he’d expected it to be a fling simply relegated to the tour. Maybe it was because it seemed so intense and consuming while it happened. He’d tried to ignore it, but it was difficult, because every spare moment they’d had on the road Val and Jet had spent together. It seemed too hardcore to last.

  And, yet, there was Jet at their door one Thursday night early summer. “Hey, Jet. You here to see Val?”

  “Yeah.” Brad and Jet had always gotten along. Brad respected the guy’s musical abilities—he was a hell of a guitarist. Amazing, in fact, and Brad was surprised their band hadn’t already been picked up by a label. Seeing him through Val’s eyes made him see the appeal to women too. The guy’s tattoos put Brad’s to shame. He was inked from shoulder to wrist on both arms, but that wasn’t all. He was pierced all over too. He knew Val also had a thing for long hair, and Jet’s fit the bill. He just wasn’t sure about it all, though. Not only did it bother him that Val had run straight from Ethan into Jet’s arms, but he knew Jet was a bit of a playboy. He didn’t want the guy breaking her heart. Still, he had to let Val make her own mistakes. He would never say a word to her about what he thought.

  Goddamn, he had to let her go. He wasn’t going to be able to find his own happiness if he continued mourning the fact that he’d never had her enough to consider her lost to him.

  “She was in the shower. Let me see if she’s free. Come on in.” Before she’d gotten in the shower, she’d acted upset, and now he was putting two and two together. Lovers’ spat already? Jet stepped in the door and stood to wait. Brad figured he wouldn’t make himself at home, because it had never been a secret that he and Ethan weren’t friends. The bathroom was free, so he went to Val’s room and knocked on the door.

  “Yeah?”

  “Val? Jet’s here. Did you wanna see him?”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Brad peeked out of the hallway and motioned for Jet to join him. By the time he made it over, Val opened her bedroom door and she took Jet in her arms. Brad backed away.

  And he prayed for strength. Strength to let her go so she could live her life and the will to live his own. He had to find a way.

  Chapter Forty-one

  THE DAYS BEGAN to fly as Brad renewed his goals. He liked lists, and so he made a list of priorities, all leading to the same main goal. The first was to continue booking shows. More than that, though, his focus changed a little. If he had a choice of more than one show (which happened more and more often), he would choose the one that had bands they hadn’t played with before (if that was an option). He was constantly looking for new venues too. The point was more exposure, because he figured he�
��d never know when they’d get noticed by the right person.

  The second goal was to keep writing music. He’d noticed that every new song he wrote was better than the last. In fact, the stuff he was writing that summer put the first few songs he’d ever written to shame.

  The third goal was to get laid more often. Thoughts of Val continued to linger in his head, and he felt like he was in perpetual grief. It wasn’t healthy. He was twenty-one, for fuck’s sake, and he should have been having sex every goddamn night of the week. But he wasn’t, and that was going to change.

  He still didn’t over the summer. He found a girl once in a while and made sure he always had condoms at the ready, but he just couldn’t get into it. When he would, he’d picture Val in his mind. He knew it was unhealthy, but he didn’t know how to let her go.

  By fall, he managed to find a girl now and then, but more than that, his feelings for Val were simmering down again. She broke up with Jet, but he wasn’t going to allow himself to make a move. Every time he had in the past, he’d gotten his heart crushed. It wasn’t going to happen again. So he was going to bury those feelings for her, and the music was key. He poured everything into it—his heart and his soul. It was therapeutic. Sometimes he wrote lyrics too. Sometimes he shared them with the band, but he usually didn’t. Most often, he’d keep the words to himself so Val could write her own and make the song hers too. She didn’t have to know the song had meant something else to him entirely.

  As an extension of his objectives, he kept doing things that real rock stars did. He got tattoos when he felt like it; he kept growing his hair longer (although he had to tie it back in a rubber band for work); and he would go to pawn shops once in a while to buy cool pedals for his guitar to try new sounds.

  The best thing, though, was Zane had suggested a studio where they could record a high-quality CD. He checked it out and was impressed. Yeah, Fully Automatic had a CD, but it sounded amateur (which it was), and he knew they needed something that sounded professional. It was going to cost a lot, though, but he didn’t know how much. It all depended, first off, on how much time they’d have to spend in the studio recording. What also factored into the cost was how many songs they wanted to record. So, by September, he’d set another goal for himself. He was going to set aside so much money a month until he had enough. Since moving to the bigger place, though, it was going to take longer. At the rate he was going, it would take at least a year to save up enough money—unless, in the meantime, they started earning more with their shows. That didn’t seem likely, but he could always hope.

  In fact, hope was the one thing that often kept him going when nothing else would.

  * * *

  They had a show in October, one that at first made Brad feel like they’d gone off the rails. It was intense and energetic, far above and beyond anything they’d experienced before, but he didn’t like how they’d gotten there.

  They were setting up for the show, just like they had hundreds of times before, and he noticed that Val was wearing a trench coat. Yeah, it had been raining earlier and it was cold, but the long coat seemed to be impeding her motion. She’d been acting secretive anyway, so he wondered if she’d gotten a new tattoo or something she was wanting to unveil for the show. He said, “Val, you’d have an easier time with your coat off. Are you still cold?” She just smiled.

  Later, though, when they were getting ready to go up onstage to play, Val asked, “This time, would you guys start playing? Then I’ll come out after the music starts.”

  That confirmed his suspicions. She was going to do something but was afraid of sharing it with them beforehand. The fact that she wouldn’t tell them made him nervous, like it was something they might hate. Still…he kept his mouth shut. Ethan wasn’t going to be quiet, though. “Why?”

  “I want to try something new.”

  “You’re not gonna ditch out on us, are you?”

  “No, of course not. Just trust me.”

  Trust her. That was going to be tough. They were getting ready to play his newest song, one called “Primeval,” and he was nervous about it. He didn’t need to fret over some shit Val had up her sleeve in addition to worrying about how the new song would go over.

  Didn’t matter. They went onstage and started playing, and he let the music fill his soul. This was a song he didn’t have any secret lyrics for; it was one where he’d simply let the music speak for his emotions, and it was full of anger. It was how he could keep his daily emotions in check, by pouring out all the negativity into his guitar. He felt anger at his bandmates for not pulling their weight; at Ethan for not getting or keeping his shit together; at Val for making stupid decisions; at himself for not finding a way to let her go.

  When he played the song, he felt a weight lift, and he just let himself feel it. He was going to trust Val, just like she asked. Ethan had the notion that she was going to bail, but why would she? They’d been playing together for over a year. She had as much invested in the band as the guys did. And he decided to not worry about whatever the hell she was going to do.

  After they started playing, Val made her entrance, and Brad thought he was going to die. She strutted onstage in red heels and little else. She was wearing matching panties, bra, and a fucking garter and hose. That was it. She was wearing less than a lot of Victoria’s Secret models he’d seen. He took a deep breath and felt grateful that his fingers and the instinctive part of his brain knew what to do, because his conscious mind was losing it.

  He heard Ethan hit a wrong note, and it sounded like nails on a chalkboard. The guy had done it before, especially when he was blitzed out of his gourd, but this was one even the audience couldn’t help but notice.

  Brad wondered if the guy did it intentionally to make a statement.

  Didn’t matter. The crowd went wild. He’d never heard that kind of reception for one of their shows before. Yeah, he knew they had fans and they made for kick ass audiences, but now he realized how important Val was to them. She fronted their band—she was their face…and now she was their body too. Brad had to give her credit—it was ballsy. But he also felt like it meant that she didn’t believe in herself enough as a singer to trust that her vocal chops and stellar songwriting skills could pull in the audience.

  Instead, she felt like she had to rely on sexual appeal.

  He wasn’t sure why, but it pissed him off. It pissed him off hardcore, and he was even more glad they’d chosen to play “Primeval” first. He let his emotions build and tear through the song, and by the time they got to the solo, he felt like he’d melded with his guitar. The solo was not only flawless (the goal he’d been aiming for during the days he’d been practicing), but it felt effortless.

  The entire show was amazing, full of frenetic energy, and he knew if they could play shows like that all the time, it wouldn’t be long before a label snatched them up. He could barely remember it, though, because his mind was in a dark place for the whole show. He wished he could have enjoyed it, because he believed it was their best show ever.

  He decided, as they took their equipment off the stage, that he wouldn’t say anything for a while. He was going to wait until he could be rational. Maybe in a few days, he could trust himself to be reasonable and explain to Val why what she was doing was a bad idea. For now, though, he wasn’t going to say a word.

  He should have known that the guys wouldn’t keep quiet, though. During the drive home, Ethan was the first to say something. “What the hell inspired that shit, Val?”

  She turned in the seat to look at him. Brad kept his eyes on the road. “The outfit?”

  “Yeah. Not that any of us are complaining.”

  “I dunno. I just thought if I looked kinda sexy, it could only help us.”

  Zane said, “It worked. I think half the audience had hard ons for most of the show.”

  “Okay, I didn’t need that visual, Zane. Thanks.”

  Brad bit his tongue. Fucking goddamn. He was having a hell of a time. He wasn’t ready to tal
k, because he didn’t think he’d be able to say what he needed to say without sounding like a jealous asshole…which he was right now. He could feel Val looking at him—why?—but he forced his eyes to stay on the road. She said, “I guess I might as well warn you guys—there’s plenty more where this came from.”

  He could hear Ethan. “Jesus Christ. Please just tell me you don’t have any more garters. My heart can’t take it.”

  Zane laughed. “I think I’m gonna ask Tanya to buy something like that.”

  Val said, “Why don’t you buy it for her, stud?”

  “Wouldn’t she find it insulting if I bought her something and then asked her to wear it? Like she’s not good enough on her own?”

  “I dunno. Why don’t you go shopping together?”

  “That’s a great idea.”

  The chatter died down and Brad almost turned the radio up loud. He couldn’t keep quiet anymore, though, because the rest of the band had weighed in. He included Nick in the weigh in, because his silence wasn’t atypical. He needed everyone else to know how he felt, and then if she still chose to do it, he’d live with it. But he couldn’t keep quiet. “Val, I’m not gonna tell you what to do, but are you sure you want to go down this path?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. Truth be told, he loved seeing her body, and if he hadn’t cared about her so much, he would have loved it even more. But he didn’t want her selling herself short. “There’s always a chance people won’t take you seriously. They’ll think you’re just a cupcake.”

  She giggled. “A cupcake? Why would they think that? I sing and rock out.”

  “I’m just sayin’. It’s a chance you’re taking.”

  “So what should I do, Brad?” She was looking at him—hard. He couldn’t look back. He couldn’t. She would know how he felt; they all would. So he kept his eyes on the road while she continued. “Was it just me, or was the audience insane tonight?”