The Bar Next Door

by Rose, Katia

  For a moment he looks nothing like the suave, fast-talking rock star I walked up to at the bar. There’s something almost childish in his excitement as he tells me about the band’s success. He’s like a kid presenting a science project it took most of the school year to make.

  I can’t help flashing him a grin. “And now you guys are on all the Billboard hit lists and heading off to tour Europe this summer.”

  He smiles back and shrugs. “The shows in Europe aren’t going to be anywhere near as big as what we play in Canada. We’re only just breaking out there, but still, it’s all kind of unreal.”

  “Has it been a hard transition, working with a huge label like Atlas?”

  A few lines form in his forehead, just deep enough for me to notice.

  “It’s had its ups and downs. Atlas is...” He glances at my phone and shakes his head before continuing. “Atlas is a huge label, just like you said. We’re not used to that.”

  Even through the lingering haze of the alcohol, my reporter’s intuition can pick up on the fact that there’s a story here. If I was one beer closer to sober I know I could get the answers I want without him even realizing it, but right now my journalist skills are about as ninja-like as my stair climbing ones. Matt dodges every question I throw at him.

  “Tell me about ‘Sofia,’” I prompt, after I’ve decided to let the subject of Atlas go. “It’s your biggest hit so far. Do you ever get tired of playing it night after night?”

  He scratches his stubble for a moment and then thumbs his bottom lip while he thinks. My own bottom lip starts to drop open as I watch. I snap my head away to stare at the bottom of the staircase instead, before I literally start drooling over him.

  “Back when I was a kid and first started playing,” he answers, “I used to wonder how bands managed not to go insane playing the same songs every night. After my first gig back in high school though, I got it.”

  He sits there, contemplating for long enough that I’m about to ask him to continue before he does it himself.

  “I don’t know if I should be saying this on record, but when I was sixteen me and some of my buddies formed a garage band we called...uh...Well, it was called Chained Souls.”

  “Chained Souls?” I cut in, a snort escaping me.

  “Chained Souls,” he repeats, feigning solemnity before he laughs. “Our songs were as shit as our name, to be honest, but we thought we were going to be the voice of our generation. We went in the local Battle of the Bands. We didn’t make it any farther than the second round and broke up pretty soon after that, but I’ll never forget the feeling of the MC announcing our set. It was totally different from playing Nirvana covers at school talent shows. We were filling silence with a combination of sounds no one else had ever made before.”

  He leans forward and his eyes find mine.

  “Even then, I knew there was a power in that. I knew my voice would never be so loud or so strong as when...when I let it move through my fingers and make itself heard on my drums.”

  Great. He’s a fucking poet.

  Something stirs in me as we spend the next few seconds staring at each other. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in the long hours and rushing around, I forget why I ever wanted to be a journalist in the first place. Right now the answer is clear, though. That power he’s talking about—I can feel it too. For me, it flows through a pen instead of an instrument, but when I write about a band or a song I really love, I feel like my words have the power to change things.

  I wrap the interview up soon after that. Staring into Matt’s eyes has also put my drool reflexes past the point of control, and I don’t want to embarrass myself any further. Thankfully, the alcohol is waning and it’s not too hard to put a bit of frost in my tone to cover up how entranced I was getting.

  “Sure you don’t want to know how I got my name?” Matt asks. “Off the record?”

  “We can leave that one a mystery. I really do have to get home.”

  I straighten up, tucking my phone into my pocket.

  “Wait, let me see that.”

  He reaches a hand out towards me and I pass him the phone, wondering what he’s up to.

  “There,” he says, handing it back after a moment. “That’s my number, in case you come up with any more questions. Or if you plan on climbing any more stairs tonight. It seems like it might be dangerous for you to do that alone.”

  “Ha ha. Hilarious.”

  I blink as my eyes adjust to the bar lighting once we’ve climbed back down the stairs.

  “Hey, isn’t that the beach boy you were talking to when I came in?”

  Matt steps up beside me and points to where Eric’s chatting up another girl a few feet away.

  I turn to face him. “You noticed me when you came in?”

  I’m surprised to see him look embarrassed for a second. “Yeah. I did.” He glances at the floor, fingers tapping out a staccato rhythm on his thigh. “Anyways, sure you don’t want to go say hi?”

  He lifts the remainder of his beer and drains it, nodding towards Eric as he does.

  “I don’t think that would go well. I told him you were my sperm donor.”

  He splutters for a moment before managing to swallow the beer down, thumping a fist against his chest.

  “It was a joke,” I hurry to add.

  “Thanks for clarifying,” he wheezes.

  “I gotta go now. Thanks for showing up. My boss would have killed me if I didn’t get this story.”

  I give him small smile, turning away as he continues to recover from choking.

  “Kay, wait!”

  I’m halfway across the room when his hand brushes my arm. I turn around and find him staring down at me.

  “Look, I know you’ve got work tomorrow, but do you want to just stay for a—”

  “Excuse me?” We both look over Matt’s shoulder to see the brunette girl with the Sherbrooke Station shirt standing behind him. “I’m really sorry to interrupt, but are you Matt Pearson?”

  “Yeah,” he answers distractedly, “I am.”

  “I know I’m being like, super annoying right now, but I love Sherbrooke Station. Do you think we could maybe get a picture? If you’re not busy?”

  Matt turns back to me, his eyes searching.

  “Like I said,” I tell him, “I’ve gotta go.”

  Three

  My Body || Young the Giant

  MATT

  I shouldn’t answer the phone.

  I’m late enough as it is, and I’m sure whatever Kyle has to say can wait, but I hit the ‘Accept call’ button and flop down on the spongy second-hand couch in the living room anyways.

  JP, my band mate and co-resident of our two bedroom apartment, left his latest restoration project sitting on one of the cushions and I almost knock it over. I grab the edges of the plastic sheet spread underneath the metal odds and ends and shift them over to the coffee table. From the looks of things he’s trying to solder an antique pencil sharpener to a piece of copper pipe. Our whole apartment is full of half-finished shit like this.

  “Sup, LB?” I ask, as Kyle comes on the line.

  “Not much, BB.”

  LB and BB. Our parents used to make us wear shirts with those letters printed across the chests. They gave me mine the day they brought Kyle home from the hospital, red and screaming and wrapped up in so many blankets you could barely find his wrinkled face in all the fabric.

  “BB stands for big brother,” my mom had explained. She showed me Kyle’s LB shirt. “He’ll grow into this one day and then you can wear them together!”

  And wear them together we did. At every fucking family gathering and photo shoot and summer trip to Florida, we were the dipshits in the matching shirts. I was ten when Kyle was born, so by the time he was old enough to fit in his t-shirt I was well aware that all our cousins were laughing at us, but I still grudgingly pulled the thing on every time my mom tossed it at me and got her camera out.

  Deep down I kind of liked wearing them. Something
in me woke up the first time Kyle wrapped his tiny baby fingers around my thumb. He needed me, and I swore I’d always be there for him. Even if it meant giving up on things I wanted, or forgiving things I didn’t want to forgive. I’d always pick him up when he fell. I’d always answer the phone when he called. I’d wear a stupid t-shirt all day at Disneyland if it showed him how much he meant to me.

  That’s what being a brother is.

  I do draw the line at my mom’s request that we haul the shirts out again and recreate some old photos. They’d be crop tops on us now, and I’m not standing outside the fucking park and holding Kyle’s hand with both our midriffs showing. I keep telling my mom I’m a rock star now and can’t handle something like that getting splashed across the band’s Facebook page.

  “Just calling for the sake of it?” I ask Kyle.

  “I need some advice,” he tells me. “We’re doing a project in music class where we have to talk about a musician that has changed our lives.”

  “That’s cool. Why didn’t I get to do cool things like that in music class? All I ever did was learn Christmas carols on the trombone.”

  “They had trombones when you were in school?” He pretends to be shocked. “That was so long ago I thought you were all still sitting around in caves, banging sticks on rocks around a fire.”

  I chuckle. “When did you get so savage, Kyle? High school is making you lose respect for your elders.”

  “You just can’t keep up, old man.”

  “Old man? Watch it, or I’ll kick your ass next time I’m back in Sudbury.”

  “When will that be?” His tough guy act slips and I hear the yearning in his voice. “Are you coming for my March break? Maybe I could come see you in Montreal instead. I have enough saved up to take the bus.”

  My heart jumps into my throat. I haven’t seen him since Christmas. I start mentally flipping through all our upcoming shows and press junkets, trying to find somewhere to squeeze in a last minute trip up north.

  “I’ll be home for Easter,” I offer with a heavy exhale, after realizing that’s the best I can do, “and you know what I told you. As soon as you turn eighteen you can come spend a whole summer out here with me.”

  I glance over at our windowsill, which houses an extensive liquor collection and the dragon-shaped bong JP brought home one day. I might not party as hard as the other guys, but there’s still no way my Montreal life is the kind of environment a ninth grader should be hanging around.

  “That’s years away,” Kyle complains. “Maybe I won’t do my project on you.”

  I blink.

  “Huh?”

  “I was going to do my project on either you or Dave Grohl. I was calling to see if maybe I could ask you some questions for research, but now that you’re being such a cock blocker I guess I won’t give you the honour.”

  I almost choke on the sudden surge of emotion. My little brother just lumped me into the same category as Dave Grohl. My brother, who used to sit on my lap and mess around with my drum kit before he could even walk, has to write about a life changing musician and he thought of me.

  Someone could walk into the apartment right now to tell me Sherbrooke Station just went triple platinum and I wouldn’t feel the same mix of swelling pride and the clanking weight of responsibility that I do right now.

  “Matt?” Kyle prompts, filling what I realize has been a full minute of silence. “You still there?”

  “Yeah.” I swallow, letting my head drop into my hand as I try to keep my voice light. “Cock blocker? Who am I cock blocking you from?”

  “From the Montreal babes! Montreal literally has some of the hottest girls in the world. They’ve done studies.”

  I laugh, glad for a change of subject as I work on pulling myself together.

  “I should probably be concerned about what kind of studies you’re looking into, Kyle,” I warn him, “but you’re not wrong.”

  I picture Kay Fischer crouched beside me on the staircase last night, tucking a lock of hair behind her glasses as she sized me up with those ray gun eyes of hers. I knew the second I saw her in Sapin Noir she was going to mean trouble.

  First off, I’ve always had a thing for girls in glasses, especially girls with faces that make them look like angels of sin.

  I’m pretty sure ‘Angel of Sin’ was the god-awful title of one of our old Chained Souls songs, but it’s the only way I can come up with describing her china doll features and thick brown hair. Combine that with an earful of piercings and the hint of a tattoo, and physically she’s pretty much my dream girl.

  There was more to her than that, though. She just seemed to get it. I’m used to reporters giving me blank stares when I geek out over music the way I did with Kay. Journalists seem to want catchy quotes, not passionate soliloquies, but when I looked at Kay after telling her what drumming means to me, I saw a blazing understanding in her. I wasn’t just spewing words to someone with a microphone; we were sharing a feeling.

  “The girls here are definitely some of the hottest in the world,” I admit to Kyle, “and once you’ve reached the age of legal majority I’ll introduce you to as many as you want.”

  “Cock blocker,” he fumes.

  “For four more years,” I insist, “then I’ll be your wingman.”

  He spends the next few moments grumbling about how unfair the world is before asking if he can start his research on me right now. I pull my phone away from my ear to check the time on the screen. I could sit here talking to him all night, but I’m going to start getting angry texts from the band soon, and usually I’m the one sending those out.

  “I’m really sorry, LB, but I’m already late for rehearsal,” I admit. “How about after school tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, that works.”

  “Alright, I’ll talk to you then. And Kyle?”

  “Yeah?”

  I run a hand over my eyes. “This, uh, this means a lot. You wanting to do this project on me. I promise I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

  We hang up after that and I bolt for the metro, riding the orange line up to Sherbrooke Station and hurrying across the street to our rehearsal space. It’s been snowing all day, and the tips of my fingers are numb by the time I make my way down the outside staircase to the basement.

  The snow must have held the other guys up because only Ace is here, slumped over his guitar on one of the musty couches. He strums a few half-hearted chords as I stomp the snow off my boots and toss my coat down beside him.

  “How was the interview?” he asks, pushing the sand-coloured hair out of his eyes. We look similar enough that most reporters ask if we’re brothers.

  “You mean how was your interview?”

  He shrugs. “I said I was sorry. I forgot.”

  “You’re lucky Shayla didn’t.”

  If our manager hadn’t thought to check up on him and call me in as backup, we would have missed the La Gare interview entirely. I should push him for a better apology, but I let it go. We don’t just look like brothers; we act like them too. After so many years Ace has gotten used to having Big Brother Matt around to bail him out.

  It doesn’t seem to matter that the fucker’s two months older than me and pretty much the face of the band. If there’s a mess to clean up, I’m the guy to call. At this point I just consider it taking one for the team. Sherbrooke Station is worth the hit to my pride that comes with being Ace’s unofficial babysitter.

  Speaking of which, he seems to be having some trouble sitting straight on the couch right now.

  “God Ace, are you drunk? It’s not even six yet.”

  “I’m not fucking drunk, man.”

  As if to prove it, he runs his hands over the frets in a complex flurry of finger-picking that would make even an experienced player’s jaw drop. I’m not impressed, though. I know he could play that thing blind drunk, in the pitch dark, with one hand tied behind his back.

  Lately, he manages at least the first of those three on an almost daily basis.

&nb
sp; After satisfying himself, if not me, he goes to lean on the arm of the couch and misses by a few inches, falling forwards over the neck of his guitar and narrowly saving himself from a face plant.

  “Fucking hell, Ace. You’re pathetic.”

  “Hey,” he chuckles, clearly amused with his lack of depth perception, “at least I’m here.”

  True. At least there’s that.

  The door opens and JP slips into the room, doing the same boot stomping routine as me and letting out a string of expletives like only a born and raised Quebecois can.

  “Osti de câlice de tabarnak! Il fait tellement froid, là! My hands are gonna fucking freeze right off, man.”

  Something about the cold here makes everybody swear more. I don’t think I’ve heard JP go more than three sentences without dropping some kind of profanity since January. Being the band’s little ray of sunshine that he is though, he’s usually got one of his huge-ass JP grins plastered across his face as he cheerfully curses the shit out of everything.

  “It’s March already,” he groans, dusting the snow off the ridiculous trapper hat he’s always wearing. “It’s supposed to be springtime, eh?”

  “You know what they say,” I tell him, “in like a lion, out like a lamb.”

  He gives me a blank stare.

  “Or maybe you don’t know what they say,” I amend. “It’s an expression.”

  He rolls his eyes and mutters, “Anglos. You guys say the weirdest shit.”

  “Where’s Cole?” Ace mutters.

  “Probably hanging around Roxanne’s cafe, as usual,” answers JP.

  I raise an eyebrow. “I thought they called it off again?”

  “Maybe. Who knows?” JP lets out a yawn. “They’re like a broken light switch, those two— always off, always on.”