Kneeling by the Roadside 2/4
J2 RPS AU
NC-17
Part 2 of 4
Master post
Art
I'm in Provo for the night and I can't sleep. This is the most ridiculous thing - I can't sleep because I can't stop thinking, when all I did today was drive and think. I'm thinking about Gabe losing his shit over me disappearing without notice. I'm thinking about Adrianne at the memorial show, how she sang Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" and while no one would ever confuse her for Grace Slick, her voice was cracked and crazed and she looked wild on stage, wild and insane, and at the time I thought it was the best set Ally Pally had ever done. I'm thinking about the time you and I went to the Congress Avenue Bridge to watch for the bats, like tourists. I'm thinking about the very first show PoD ever played. I'm thinking about the year we went to your parents' house for Thanksgiving, and they made up the guest room for me because your dad was so weird about us sharing a bed, and when everyone else got up early to go shopping on Black Friday we had mad monkey sex in your old room.
Now I'm thinking about you naked, and me naked. I'm thinking about your hands and your mouth and your ass and your thighs. I'm thinking about how worried I was that the bed would collapse under us, and how you laughed when I told you that, and how hard I fucked you, almost like I wanted to break the bed and prove myself right. I'm thinking about showering together afterwards, and you making me lunch, and you giving directions while I drove to the ice cream place you and your friends used to go to in high school. I'm thinking about how you crept into the guest room every night we were there so I could sleep next to you and I wouldn't have to sleep alone.
My god, I loved you.
I still do. Why else would I be driving across half the country on a whim? There's no one I can talk to in Austin, not the way I can talk to you.
I hope this isn't a mistake. I still can't sleep. The Thanksgiving memory unspools a whole long thread of other memories until I have to shove my shorts down my hips and take myself in hand and stroke my cock and fondle my balls and come hard over my fingers.
Now I'm even more awake. Shit.
There's no point in lying here staring at the ceiling and remembering what was. I get dressed, get my stuff together, check out of the motel. The desk clerk looks at me like there's something wrong with me, and maybe there is.
"I can't sleep," I tell him. "May as well keep driving."
The moon's high, the stars bright. I don't think there are any clouds, and the only other vehicles on the road are trucks. I'm awake and I'm hungry and I'm restless and I don't know what to do. I'm afraid I'm making a mistake, driving north to see you. I should have at least waited around the house long enough to tell someone in person what I was doing, where I was going. I should have given them that much.
I get to Salt Lake City and I'm starving. No wonder - it's been a long time since I ate dinner. Are there 24-hour diners in Mormon Country? Google tells me there are. They don't serve alcohol, but that's okay, I don't want a beer. I just want some food.
I feel a little bit like I did at the breakfast place in Clovis, because there's no one here. I sit at the counter because why not? At first I think Pancakes and then I think Salad, so that's what I order. A big Cobb salad. I think the waitress is going to laugh me out of the diner. Who orders a salad at three in the morning? Her nametag says "Genevieve" and she teaches me how to make vinaigrette. It's just one part vinegar to three parts oil, or two parts if you like your salad dressing to be vinegary. I don't. She makes it both ways for me so I can taste the difference.
She's cute. You'd like her.
I'm obviously not a local and she already said it's very slow, so she leans over the counter and asks me about myself. Where am I going? Why? Where did I come from? What do I do for work? What do I like to do for fun? Do I like Utah? Why am I driving from Texas to Washington by myself?
I tell her my experience of Utah has been limited so far because I'm not a tourist, I'm just driving through. People are pretty friendly, though.
"Yeah, sometimes we can be really nice," she admits. "Other times...." She waves her hand back and forth. "Sometimes you gotta be a local."
I want to ask her if she's a Mormon, if she has twelve brothers and sisters, if she has to wear those weird Mormon pajamas, but that's rude and while I sometimes say dumb things when I'm sleep-deprived I'm not an asshole. I ask her if she likes Salt Lake City and she just shrugs.
"I've never lived anywhere else," she says. "Well, I went to college in Las Vegas. I thought my grandpa was going to have a heart attack when I told him." She snickers. "Poor man." She shakes her head. "We're not Mormons, he just thinks Las Vegas is full of mobsters and crime."
"It used to be," I tell her. "We played some shows there." I've mentioned the band already. "It's not like that any more. It's family-friendly now. I don't think your grandpa had anything to worry about."
She grins. "I didn't tell him all the things I got up to. I was in college, you know? You can play stupid college tricks anywhere. Even here." She straightens the condiments and the napkin holder. "Well, maybe not Brigham Young. Although you'd be surprised. You want another Pepsi?"
I don't. But I do have a slice of pie. Banana cream, because it makes me think of Kim. The Other Kim, too, she used to make it for birthdays. She'd bring it to Smith’s before a show if someone was celebrating.
Maybe banana cream pie is a Kim thing, and Kims everywhere like to make and eat them.
This one is pretty good - not quite as good as the Other Kim’s, not out-of-the-fridge fresh, but to be fair I'm sitting in a diner at almost four in the morning and even if they made it fresh for the dinner rush, the dinner rush is long over. But it tastes like bananas and pudding and whipped cream, and I think the crust is homemade even though I'm sure the whipped cream came out of a can, and it's what I wanted.
Genevieve asks me what I think and I tell her the truth. She nods like that was the answer she was expecting.
"The best we have is the coconut cream," she tells me. "If you'd asked for my advice that's what I'd tell you."
"I knew a guy," I say, "banana cream was his favorite. It was his thing."
"It's the second-best pie we make. He's got pretty good taste."
She brings me a little container of vinaigrette with my bill and I leave her a big tip. I'm surprised it's still dark when I leave.
I should stop in Salt Lake City, sleep for a while. But I'm awake now. I keep driving.
The sun is starting to think about rising and I'm starting to think about sleep, so I stop where 84 and 15 split. I'm a couple hours from Idaho but I don't need to cross a border now. The motel desk clerk kind of give me the side-eye for checking in at five in the morning, but at this point I don't care what strangers think of me. I sleep like a log and I don't dream.
* * *
It's one in the afternoon and I can see the landscape, and it's something else. There are mountains in the far distance, in front of me and off to the right. But it's flat here, I almost expect tumbleweeds, and even though I've never lived in the mountains my whole life, and have never really wanted to, I start to feel more and more that mountain living is the way to be. Trees, bears, hiking trails. Snow. What do you think? If I moved to the mountains, would you come visit me?
What am I saying. You've never been back to Austin, not even to see Christian, and you didn't break up with him. Why would you visit me anywhere? Misha was a sad gray cloud for weeks, just dripping sadness and woe everywhere he went - he was telling people how cruel you were, how cruel I was, without ever bothering to mention that he was chasing you even though you were still dating me and neither of us was interested in buying what he wanted to sell - and you and I broke up partly because I wouldn't go to Seattle with you, but I didn't want you to go without me either.
So I get why you never came back. But if I were to move to the mountains - people tell me Flagstaff's nice, or Boulder, if I wanted to leave Texas - would you come see me there? There wouldn't be anyone around to remind you of bad times. Just me.
Well, maybe I'd be a reminder of some of the bad shit. Forget it. I like where I am, anyway. Austin's been good to me.
I'm flying through Idaho and I pass the exit for Ketchum and think Hey, I can swing north and see where Hemingway offed himself. Too morbid, though, huh.
It's time for food and a pee break, and I should get gas while I can. Eating in the car means I spill food on myself, and even though I'm in a tearing hurry to get to you and I still have a long way to go, I need to stop for fifteen minutes. Stretch my legs. Breathe fresh air. Smell something that isn't the inside of my car.
I still haven't turned my phone notifications back on. I check them for the first time in what seems like forever, and there's a text from Gabe - Check Smiths FB page - so I do, just for something to keep me company while I scarf down my lunch. Ms S posted about closing Smith's, officially announcing it to everyone, not just the bands and techs and bartenders who rely on the place for a living, who think of it as home, and I'm a little surprised to see all the strong reactions from people who just went there to drink and listen to the music. I shouldn't be surprised, and I don't know why I am, but... Smith's is ours - it belongs to the singers and the songwriters and the musicians and the bands. But it belongs to the drinkers and the fans too, all the people who made it possible for the place to stay in business twenty years. If you play it, they will come, and if they don't come, the venue closes and you play it somewhere else.
It's interesting, though, all the things Smith's meant to people, all the messages they leave. "Proposed to my wife there." "Our first date was to see Potatoes of Defiance and now we're married." (Gabe responded to that one. Of course he did. It's probably why he told the rest of us to check out the post.) "Friends took me to Smith's for my birthday and Adrianne from Ally Pally sang the birthday song to me from the stage. Best. Birthday. Ever." "Drowned my sorrows there after my divorce was finalized and Aldis the bartender listened to me and made sure I didn't drive my drunk ass home. I owe you, brother." "Four years ago, in the ladies' room during a Lucy Long show, holding a pregnancy test, too scared to pee on the stick. A strange girl comes in, makes me pee, holds my hand. She jumps up and down when I see the two lines, makes me call my husband *right then*, hugs me so hard my ribs pop. I'll never forget that she and Smith's were there when I realized I was actually excited to be a mother, and I'm heartbroken my kid will never know what a fun, friendly venue it was." "Moved to Philly nine years ago, still miss this place." "Smith's saw me through boyfriends, girlfriends, all my college years, my first and only acid trip, some of the best nights of my life, and there will never be another club like it."
Truer words were never written.
I don't know if it makes me feel any better to read the tributes of strangers, but if I'd never helped Gabe and Chad and AJ form PoD, if I'd never joined a band of my own or if we'd never gotten anywhere, I'd be one of them. I used to go for the live music when I was in college. I'd stand in the crowd and watch the bands and think Someday I'll be up there, someday I'll get to play my own stuff for people. In retrospect it's really funny that our first show was at a short-lived and ironically-named place called Fern Bar - the guy who owned it named it after his wife and I don’t think it even lasted a year - considering that the four of us sloped around Smith's for months and months listening to bands, comparing sounds, taking notes on what worked and what didn't, what drew a crowd and what would clear the floor.
I wanted to take you there for our first official date, but the night you were free, no one I liked was playing. We went to a movie instead, remember? Like high schoolers. And it wasn't a month later you came over and I taught you about Led Zeppelin. We sat on the floor and I played my albums for you like it was the 70s, and you fucked me to "All My Love". And when I told you Robert Plant wrote it after his son died, you made me play it for you again so you could really listen to the lyrics. We ordered pizza, we drank beer, I fucked you half-drunk to "Kashmir". The first time we ever had sex, and we did it twice. I still get kind of hard when I hear those songs.
That Facebook post sends me into a nostalgia spiral, and when I get back on the road and continue north, my head is full of shows we played and shows I saw, not just with you but all my years in Austin. For HAAM Day last year Ms S organized a country-themed lineup for Smith's - a whole day of bands and solo artists covering honky-tonk and country rock and whatever twangy banjo-inflected songs we could think of. Ally Pally covered Loretta Lynn, and even though PoD was supposed to be getting ready, I had to go out on the floor to watch Adrianne pretend to throw hands during "Fist City". Christian actually might have told you about it - he brought a friend onstage, a woman named Gina, and they sang Johnny and June Carter Cash's "Oh What a Good Thing We Had". Misha did "Old Town Road", and while you know my feelings for him and he did get some boos from the audience, I thought he did a great job.
Sunday All Day wrote a new song of their own, which might have been cheating, but the crowd loved it. Rob and Rich did "Foggy Mountain Breakdown", if you can believe that. I had no idea Rob could play the banjo. They were really impressive. And Gabe reached way back and got PoD to cover the Flying Burrito Brothers, "Dark End of the Street" and "Six Days on the Road". Chad joked that we should be wearing our best pearl-button cowboy shirts until Alex found some pictures of the band, and then he went around trying to get his hands on a bunch of embroidered jackets and telling us we needed to grow out our hair for the right 60s shag. Maybe that's where he got the idea for the direction of the new band, that twangy country thing. He could have been influenced by anyone who played that night, to be honest. It was a good time - good music (mostly, because not everyone is cut out for country, and some of the covers were... well, everyone tried) for a good cause.
Now I'm thinking about PoD's earliest shows, three of us with various degrees of nerves, Kim standing backstage, like he did for so many people, telling us to kick it in the ass, reassuring us we could do it. Gabe was always confident, always knew we'd be a success. AJ was just in it for a good time, and while he had the chops and knew was he was doing, in the early days he wasn't any more convinced of our future success than Chad and I were.
It's all I ever wanted to do - make music, play for people, cowrite some great songs. I've gotten to do it for seven years and I'm grateful, but I need a change. But it's hard to pull the plug and just do it. I'm committed to this new thing Chad and I started, I just have cut the cord with Gabe. Somehow. Without burning that bridge.
I wish I could ask Kim for advice. He'd tell me straight, he'd listen to our two songs and all of Chad's ideas and he'd tell us what he thought, whether it would sell or not, whether it was worth doing the way we want to do it. He'd make suggestions, he'd give advice. You'd think I had no one else to ask, but Kim was there in the beginning, he'd know how far we've come. He'd know how far I've come. He'd been around long enough to know how to judge a brand-new band. And he'd keep it a secret until we were ready to share.
I wish I knew how Gabe knew. Did I give it away? Did Chad? Did Jake say something? No, it wouldn't have been Jake. He and Gabe don't really talk, just because their paths don't really cross. Alex, maybe, picking up on a vibe.
If it was a year ago Chad and Jake and I could go to Ms S and say Listen to what we've got so far - will people come to hear this? Would you book us? And like Kim, she'd be honest with us. But she has too much going on right now and I'll be honest - it's one thing to look back at all the years and all the good times I had at Smith's, all the things it meant to me, and it's something else entirely to look ahead at a world where it doesn't exist any longer.
It's like your parents selling your childhood home. You can gather for Thanksgiving at their new place, but it's not the same. It will never be the same.
I don't like this big a change, when it's all out of my hands. You probably know that, it's not some great revelation, but right now it's not something I'm ready to deal with. It's hard. It's work. I just want to keep driving and not think about the future. But there isn't much to be gained from thinking about the past either.
I look around, now that I've smacked back into the present, and I don't know where I am. The landscape changes when I'm not paying attention, and all of a sudden it isn't so flat, or it isn't so brown, or it isn't so sunny. But I don't need to pay attention to the road - it's 84 almost all the way to the top of Oregon, and I know I'm not there yet. I'll see signs. My GPS will tell me where to go.
If I drive all day I'll get to you too late, and I can't do that to you. I've just been going until I can't anymore, and sleeping wherever I stop. I should have planned this trip better. I should have planned it in the first place.
At least you know I'm coming.
* * *
After you left, I didn't want to stay in our apartment but I just couldn't make myself move. I'd gotten used to living with someone, for one thing, and I didn't want (and couldn't really afford) to live by myself. Luckily Osric needed a place to live, so I had someone to split the rent with and keep me company while we both tried to find better digs. Chad and Gabe were looking for a roommate, so I took the opportunity. It made sense at the time, but if I'd thought about it for longer than ten minutes, if I hadn't been so desperate to get away from the rooms that reminded me of you, I would have realized that working with them was enough, and I didn't have to live with them too. I love Chad like a brother but I was spending so much more time with them, I couldn't get away from them, and Gabe especially liked to talk shop when we were all together, and there's only so much of that I can take.
Under other circumstances I wouldn't have minded so much - they're good roommates as roommates go, not entirely inconsiderate and willing to share chores and expenses, they don't bring girls over all the time, they're slobs in the kitchen but we managed to keep the place from becoming a pigsty - but it made me realize that even musicians need some work/life balance, and that means not living with the rest of the band.
The first few months were an adjustment, is what I'm saying. I locked myself out twice - the first time I just called Chad and he said to come meet him downtown, he was out with Rob and Rich but I could join them, but the second time I couldn't get anyone on the phone, no one was around or if they were they weren't free, I left messages everywhere and I really, really needed to get back into the house. I don't even remember why, I just remember that it was vitally important that I not be stuck outside.
So here I am, holding my phone in front of my face, yelling at Chad because I’m locked out of the god damn house and he’s the only one who’s still in town and has a key, and he’s not answering his fucking phone or any of the fucking texts I keep sending him. "But Jared," I hear you say in a sane, reasonable tone of voice, "why don’t you call the landlord?" A good question. I would have, except he lives way out past Georgetown and he’s really hard to get ahold of, and he hates coming to Austin even when he has to. "But Jared," I hear you say again, in the same reasonable tone of voice, "don’t you have an extra key under the mat or buried in a potted plant or something?" Well, we do now. I bought one of those fake stones and put two sets of keys in it in case this shit happens again. Gabe gave one of his friends a copy of the keys because he went through a phase when he locked himself out like every other week, but I don’t know this friend and couldn’t call them to let me in.
Now I'm thinking about the dumbshit things I did after we broke up, and this is embarrassing and sad, I shouldn't be sharing but I will anyway. Not long after you left, I’m at this club, Adrianne made me go, and I saw Justin - do you remember him? Blond, pretty, a regular at Smith's as a music fan - we’d met a couple of times but we didn't know each other that well. I’d had a lot to drink and I was broken up about you leaving, and I just wanted someone to want me, and he did. He’s so pretty but not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But I didn’t know that yet, I just knew he was hot and he was into me and he dragged me out onto the dance floor mostly so he could kiss me and I don’t know what we were thinking - no, okay, I do, at least I know what I was thinking - we kind of dragged each other into the men’s room and locked ourselves in a stall and I went down on him. The floor’s wet and gross - you know club bathrooms - and he’s so hard and we’re both hammered and I just can’t stop myself. I wanted to fuck him so badly when I was done, just bend him over and plow into him, but where do you fuck someone in the men’s room? Right? The stalls aren’t that big. He had to pull me to my feet when I was done with him, and he kissed me hard and said he could taste himself in my mouth and it was really hot. He grabbed my cock through my jeans and told me he wanted me to fuck him, and I’m not kidding, he pulls a condom from his back pocket.
"I’m a Boy Scout," he says, grinning and slapping it against my nose.
"Always prepared," I say, "loyal, trustworthy… uh… is ‘hot as hell’ in the handbook?"
He just laughed. Pretty but kind of dumb, did I say that already? But I was so hard it hurt and too drunk to care where I was as long as I got to fuck someone who wanted it.
It was… it wasn’t great. It was cramped and rushed and I was losing my balance and he was losing his balance - he kind of bent over the toilet tank - and I swear a couple guys came in while we were at it, but even though it wasn’t that good, even for drunk bathroom sex, it served its purpose. And he had a great ass.
So that was embarrassing - club bathrooms are disgusting and I just lost all control - and when I told Adrianne later, she said it was kind of sad, he should have taken me home first. "The bathroom’s not romantic," she said, as if people go to clubs to find romance. But he did take me home. We sucked face all the way back to his house but when we actually got there, we just passed out. He let me take a shower in the morning before I went home, by which I mean he joined me in the shower and kissed me until I thought I was going to drown, and then he jerked me off, and then I went home. I didn’t expect to see him again. It was going to be a one-off and that was fine. I should probably be embarrassed about that, but whatever, I wanted one thing from him and I thought he just wanted the one thing from me, and we both got it, everyone’s happy.
So of course a couple weeks later we start dating. Last time I had sex in a men’s room, though. I wouldn’t even let him blow me backstage after a show. But he was a good fuck and a great kisser. That mouth, Jesus. Can I tell you that? Is it weird? I’m going to tell you that, and then you can tell me about whoever you dated after me, what they were like.
We were together a year, me and Justin. I wanted to think he wanted me that whole time - he never stopped telling me I was the hottest man alive, or at least the hottest man in Texas - and I guess I really needed that from someone, for more than just a night. I wanted to be wanted. But as pretty as he was, and as good as he was in bed - my god, that mouth - he wasn’t the brightest bulb and I was used to you. He was fun, I’ll give him that, and he has a good heart, as my mom would say, but I couldn’t believe we were together as long as we were. I don’t think he could really believe it either, to be honest. We never even talked about moving in together, which should have been a sign it was only ever going to be temporary. We broke up by kind of mutual agreement, and next I heard, he was fucking some guy who worked in a bank and played in a Charlie Daniels cover band on weekends.
And still, about four months after we split I ran into him at Smith’s - there was this band called Little Dog Laughed, from Fargo of all places, and the Other Kim just would not shut up about how good they were, so I went to make her happy - and maybe because we were both pretty well lubricated I briefly wished he was still single so I could take him home and fuck him six ways to Sunday. He wasn't, and I didn't. His time had passed. I haven't really seen him since.
I drive into and out of state forests in Oregon - they're green, everything's turning green - and over the border into Washington but I can't show up at your doorstep at midnight so it's time to stop for now. I must be tired from all the thinking and driving and reminiscing because I fall right to sleep and when I wake up I actually feel rested. The motel isn't much but the bed is fine and I guess I just needed a lot of hours in it.
I'm on the road in good time and it's overcast and threatens rain the entire drive. I can't even pay attention to the scenery, I'm so wound up over finally getting to you. It's been a long time. You never told me not to come, you sounded as willing to welcome me as I wanted you to, and the closer I get the more nervous I am. What if this really is a mistake? What if I get there and you change your mind about me? What if I change my mind about you?
Not that I think I will, but there's always a chance.
I give you a heads-up when my GPS tells me I'm twenty minutes away. I get lost so it's more like thirty-five. I park, I ring the bell, I panic.
What am I doing here? Why did I come? Now that I'm on your front steps, in front of your door, I'm second-guessing everything like it's a competition I need to win. What if you're on the other side of the door thinking this is a huge mistake, that you shouldn't have let me drive all this way to see you? What if you're thinking you don't want me here after all? I know it's been some time since we broke up, but is it enough time for you to get over it, enough time to forgive me for the dumb shit I did and said, enough time to forgive yourself for leaving town and leaving me?
I can forgive you. I did forgive you. If I didn't still love you, didn't still trust you, I wouldn't be here.
I take a deep breath, try to calm myself down. You open the door.
"Long time no see," you tell me, and you grin.
I don't know what to say. You don't look any different. If I didn't know better I'd think we just saw each other yesterday, not two years ago.
"Jared," you say, and your voice is gentle, like it was on the phone when I stopped outside Lubbock to tell you I was coming. You pull me inside, put your arms around me.
It's as if we never broke up, as if you never left me. I clench my hands in your shirt, hold you tight enough to crack your ribs, press my face into your neck.
What made me think this was a bad idea? Why did I ever think you might not welcome me back?
"It's okay," you murmur. "It's okay."
It's not okay, I want to say. I can keep it together for the length of time it takes me to drive here, 2100 miles across half the country, but the minute I see you I fall apart. There's nothing holding me together, nothing holding me up, but you.
"Come on," you say, finally. "Come in."
"I am in," I mumble into your shoulder. You laugh. I'm not intending to be funny, but I'm okay with it if you think I am.
"You know what I mean." I let go of your shirt, let go of you, and stand back. You look me up and down, and I return the favor. "You look good. You haven't changed."
"You haven't either."
"I don't have to shave as much." You grin. I liked it when you let your scruff grow out a little, so I don't think this is a bad thing, but it's not a conversation we're going to have - you ask if I'm hungry (no, surprisingly enough) or do I want something to drink (a soda would be great), and then you sit me on the couch and say "Tell me everything."
And I do.
You just sit there after I finish, apparently thinking.
"I don't know what to do," I say.
"First," you tell me, "you need to tell Gabe you're leaving. When you get back, you and Chad need to sit him down and have a talk. Treat it like you're telling your boss you're quitting your job - professional, not personal. You and Chad aren't leaving PoD and forming your own band because you hate Gabe. Right?"
I nod. "I am kind of tired of playing with him, though."
"Don't tell him that. No, I know you're not stupid, you won't say that. Tell him you appreciate your years in PoD, you learned a lot, it was a great experience, whatever - lie a little if you have to - but you want to go in a different direction. You want to try a different sound. He won't say 'Oh, Potatoes of Defiance can do that', will he?"
"We've played the same thing for seven years. If he wanted the band to change, we would have done it by now."
"As for Kim...." You spread your hands. "I think you just have to sit with your grief until it doesn't hurt so much. Recognize that he was a mentor and a formative influence and honor his memory by, I don't know, making the best music you can."
"It's weird to not see him backstage or walking around talking to Ms S."
"Did I tell you he asked me once if I'd ever consider singing professionally?"
I shake my head.
"Lucy Long was warming up, doing a sound check, I don't even remember why I was at Smith's in the first place, but Jason was running late so I got onstage to sing in his place. I know all their songs and Christian never cared if I sang with them. It was fun but I wasn't serious. But Kim was out on the floor listening to us, and when Jason finally showed up and I jumped off the stage he asked me if I'd ever been in a band - I said no - and did I ever think about it. I said I did sometimes, but just because I'd been hanging around Christian and Jason and Steve for so long, it felt like a natural thing to do. He said I had a good stage presence and a great voice, and I should think about it."
"I know you can sing," I tell you.
"Yeah, I know that too. But I don't want to do it for a living. I don't even want to do it as a side gig. My parents made me sing in the church choir when I was a kid and ever since then I just... it's not for me."
I remember you used to sing in the shower, and you'd sing in the car, and sometimes you'd sing PoD songs at me if I was being an ass about touring, but I also remember you never had any interest in singing in front of a crowd, except maybe sometimes at karaoke, and only if you had a couple of beers first.
"You know," you say, and I can tell you're changing the subject, "seven years is a good stretch of time for a band."
"Cliffdiver has been together for ten," I point out, and maybe their longevity is because they're not stagnating. Their sound has drifted and changed even in the last couple of years. Gabe should take a lesson from them. Rachel and Brianna would be glad to sit him down and have a chat. "I can't believe Smith's is closing."
"You're not alone. I can't believe it either, and I haven't really thought about it since I left Austin. It was a good place. A lot of good things came out of it."
"Is a good place."
"Jared."
"What? It's not dead and buried yet."
But I know I'm being stupid. Ms S made her official announcement. Kim's memorial was understood to be the last show. The curtain's coming down and I just have to accept it.
"Did Ms S ever fix that toilet in the men's room?" you ask, and it takes me a minute to bring myself out of my residual misery. "The one in the middle."
"No," I tell you. "It still makes the weirdest noises and rattles like it's going to explode. British Mark is always saying 'That is alarming'. Plumbers keep coming but none of them have been able to make it stop. Alona thinks it's haunted."
"She thinks the toilet is haunted?" You raise an eyebrow.
"Yeah." I chuckle. "Rob and Rich wrote a joke song about it - 'Toilet Ghost'. They played a show on her birthday one year - complete coincidence - that just happened to be the night they booked - and dedicated it to her from the stage, even though she wasn't even there. For about a week it was their most-downloaded song. The rest of Sunday All Day wanted to write a response but she said no. She takes her ghosts very seriously."
Chad wanted the two groups to start writing diss tracks about each other, and was so disappointed when Alona refused to be a part of it. I almost felt bad for her, but at the same time, who ever heard of a single haunted toilet out of an entire music club? It wasn't as if a drugged-out music fan died in the can, like Elvis, only to haunt that one stall for the rest of time.
Onward!
NC-17
Part 2 of 4
Master post
Art
I'm in Provo for the night and I can't sleep. This is the most ridiculous thing - I can't sleep because I can't stop thinking, when all I did today was drive and think. I'm thinking about Gabe losing his shit over me disappearing without notice. I'm thinking about Adrianne at the memorial show, how she sang Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" and while no one would ever confuse her for Grace Slick, her voice was cracked and crazed and she looked wild on stage, wild and insane, and at the time I thought it was the best set Ally Pally had ever done. I'm thinking about the time you and I went to the Congress Avenue Bridge to watch for the bats, like tourists. I'm thinking about the very first show PoD ever played. I'm thinking about the year we went to your parents' house for Thanksgiving, and they made up the guest room for me because your dad was so weird about us sharing a bed, and when everyone else got up early to go shopping on Black Friday we had mad monkey sex in your old room.
Now I'm thinking about you naked, and me naked. I'm thinking about your hands and your mouth and your ass and your thighs. I'm thinking about how worried I was that the bed would collapse under us, and how you laughed when I told you that, and how hard I fucked you, almost like I wanted to break the bed and prove myself right. I'm thinking about showering together afterwards, and you making me lunch, and you giving directions while I drove to the ice cream place you and your friends used to go to in high school. I'm thinking about how you crept into the guest room every night we were there so I could sleep next to you and I wouldn't have to sleep alone.
My god, I loved you.
I still do. Why else would I be driving across half the country on a whim? There's no one I can talk to in Austin, not the way I can talk to you.
I hope this isn't a mistake. I still can't sleep. The Thanksgiving memory unspools a whole long thread of other memories until I have to shove my shorts down my hips and take myself in hand and stroke my cock and fondle my balls and come hard over my fingers.
Now I'm even more awake. Shit.
There's no point in lying here staring at the ceiling and remembering what was. I get dressed, get my stuff together, check out of the motel. The desk clerk looks at me like there's something wrong with me, and maybe there is.
"I can't sleep," I tell him. "May as well keep driving."
The moon's high, the stars bright. I don't think there are any clouds, and the only other vehicles on the road are trucks. I'm awake and I'm hungry and I'm restless and I don't know what to do. I'm afraid I'm making a mistake, driving north to see you. I should have at least waited around the house long enough to tell someone in person what I was doing, where I was going. I should have given them that much.
I get to Salt Lake City and I'm starving. No wonder - it's been a long time since I ate dinner. Are there 24-hour diners in Mormon Country? Google tells me there are. They don't serve alcohol, but that's okay, I don't want a beer. I just want some food.
I feel a little bit like I did at the breakfast place in Clovis, because there's no one here. I sit at the counter because why not? At first I think Pancakes and then I think Salad, so that's what I order. A big Cobb salad. I think the waitress is going to laugh me out of the diner. Who orders a salad at three in the morning? Her nametag says "Genevieve" and she teaches me how to make vinaigrette. It's just one part vinegar to three parts oil, or two parts if you like your salad dressing to be vinegary. I don't. She makes it both ways for me so I can taste the difference.
She's cute. You'd like her.
I'm obviously not a local and she already said it's very slow, so she leans over the counter and asks me about myself. Where am I going? Why? Where did I come from? What do I do for work? What do I like to do for fun? Do I like Utah? Why am I driving from Texas to Washington by myself?
I tell her my experience of Utah has been limited so far because I'm not a tourist, I'm just driving through. People are pretty friendly, though.
"Yeah, sometimes we can be really nice," she admits. "Other times...." She waves her hand back and forth. "Sometimes you gotta be a local."
I want to ask her if she's a Mormon, if she has twelve brothers and sisters, if she has to wear those weird Mormon pajamas, but that's rude and while I sometimes say dumb things when I'm sleep-deprived I'm not an asshole. I ask her if she likes Salt Lake City and she just shrugs.
"I've never lived anywhere else," she says. "Well, I went to college in Las Vegas. I thought my grandpa was going to have a heart attack when I told him." She snickers. "Poor man." She shakes her head. "We're not Mormons, he just thinks Las Vegas is full of mobsters and crime."
"It used to be," I tell her. "We played some shows there." I've mentioned the band already. "It's not like that any more. It's family-friendly now. I don't think your grandpa had anything to worry about."
She grins. "I didn't tell him all the things I got up to. I was in college, you know? You can play stupid college tricks anywhere. Even here." She straightens the condiments and the napkin holder. "Well, maybe not Brigham Young. Although you'd be surprised. You want another Pepsi?"
I don't. But I do have a slice of pie. Banana cream, because it makes me think of Kim. The Other Kim, too, she used to make it for birthdays. She'd bring it to Smith’s before a show if someone was celebrating.
Maybe banana cream pie is a Kim thing, and Kims everywhere like to make and eat them.
This one is pretty good - not quite as good as the Other Kim’s, not out-of-the-fridge fresh, but to be fair I'm sitting in a diner at almost four in the morning and even if they made it fresh for the dinner rush, the dinner rush is long over. But it tastes like bananas and pudding and whipped cream, and I think the crust is homemade even though I'm sure the whipped cream came out of a can, and it's what I wanted.
Genevieve asks me what I think and I tell her the truth. She nods like that was the answer she was expecting.
"The best we have is the coconut cream," she tells me. "If you'd asked for my advice that's what I'd tell you."
"I knew a guy," I say, "banana cream was his favorite. It was his thing."
"It's the second-best pie we make. He's got pretty good taste."
She brings me a little container of vinaigrette with my bill and I leave her a big tip. I'm surprised it's still dark when I leave.
I should stop in Salt Lake City, sleep for a while. But I'm awake now. I keep driving.
The sun is starting to think about rising and I'm starting to think about sleep, so I stop where 84 and 15 split. I'm a couple hours from Idaho but I don't need to cross a border now. The motel desk clerk kind of give me the side-eye for checking in at five in the morning, but at this point I don't care what strangers think of me. I sleep like a log and I don't dream.
* * *
It's one in the afternoon and I can see the landscape, and it's something else. There are mountains in the far distance, in front of me and off to the right. But it's flat here, I almost expect tumbleweeds, and even though I've never lived in the mountains my whole life, and have never really wanted to, I start to feel more and more that mountain living is the way to be. Trees, bears, hiking trails. Snow. What do you think? If I moved to the mountains, would you come visit me?
What am I saying. You've never been back to Austin, not even to see Christian, and you didn't break up with him. Why would you visit me anywhere? Misha was a sad gray cloud for weeks, just dripping sadness and woe everywhere he went - he was telling people how cruel you were, how cruel I was, without ever bothering to mention that he was chasing you even though you were still dating me and neither of us was interested in buying what he wanted to sell - and you and I broke up partly because I wouldn't go to Seattle with you, but I didn't want you to go without me either.
So I get why you never came back. But if I were to move to the mountains - people tell me Flagstaff's nice, or Boulder, if I wanted to leave Texas - would you come see me there? There wouldn't be anyone around to remind you of bad times. Just me.
Well, maybe I'd be a reminder of some of the bad shit. Forget it. I like where I am, anyway. Austin's been good to me.
I'm flying through Idaho and I pass the exit for Ketchum and think Hey, I can swing north and see where Hemingway offed himself. Too morbid, though, huh.
It's time for food and a pee break, and I should get gas while I can. Eating in the car means I spill food on myself, and even though I'm in a tearing hurry to get to you and I still have a long way to go, I need to stop for fifteen minutes. Stretch my legs. Breathe fresh air. Smell something that isn't the inside of my car.
I still haven't turned my phone notifications back on. I check them for the first time in what seems like forever, and there's a text from Gabe - Check Smiths FB page - so I do, just for something to keep me company while I scarf down my lunch. Ms S posted about closing Smith's, officially announcing it to everyone, not just the bands and techs and bartenders who rely on the place for a living, who think of it as home, and I'm a little surprised to see all the strong reactions from people who just went there to drink and listen to the music. I shouldn't be surprised, and I don't know why I am, but... Smith's is ours - it belongs to the singers and the songwriters and the musicians and the bands. But it belongs to the drinkers and the fans too, all the people who made it possible for the place to stay in business twenty years. If you play it, they will come, and if they don't come, the venue closes and you play it somewhere else.
It's interesting, though, all the things Smith's meant to people, all the messages they leave. "Proposed to my wife there." "Our first date was to see Potatoes of Defiance and now we're married." (Gabe responded to that one. Of course he did. It's probably why he told the rest of us to check out the post.) "Friends took me to Smith's for my birthday and Adrianne from Ally Pally sang the birthday song to me from the stage. Best. Birthday. Ever." "Drowned my sorrows there after my divorce was finalized and Aldis the bartender listened to me and made sure I didn't drive my drunk ass home. I owe you, brother." "Four years ago, in the ladies' room during a Lucy Long show, holding a pregnancy test, too scared to pee on the stick. A strange girl comes in, makes me pee, holds my hand. She jumps up and down when I see the two lines, makes me call my husband *right then*, hugs me so hard my ribs pop. I'll never forget that she and Smith's were there when I realized I was actually excited to be a mother, and I'm heartbroken my kid will never know what a fun, friendly venue it was." "Moved to Philly nine years ago, still miss this place." "Smith's saw me through boyfriends, girlfriends, all my college years, my first and only acid trip, some of the best nights of my life, and there will never be another club like it."
Truer words were never written.
I don't know if it makes me feel any better to read the tributes of strangers, but if I'd never helped Gabe and Chad and AJ form PoD, if I'd never joined a band of my own or if we'd never gotten anywhere, I'd be one of them. I used to go for the live music when I was in college. I'd stand in the crowd and watch the bands and think Someday I'll be up there, someday I'll get to play my own stuff for people. In retrospect it's really funny that our first show was at a short-lived and ironically-named place called Fern Bar - the guy who owned it named it after his wife and I don’t think it even lasted a year - considering that the four of us sloped around Smith's for months and months listening to bands, comparing sounds, taking notes on what worked and what didn't, what drew a crowd and what would clear the floor.
I wanted to take you there for our first official date, but the night you were free, no one I liked was playing. We went to a movie instead, remember? Like high schoolers. And it wasn't a month later you came over and I taught you about Led Zeppelin. We sat on the floor and I played my albums for you like it was the 70s, and you fucked me to "All My Love". And when I told you Robert Plant wrote it after his son died, you made me play it for you again so you could really listen to the lyrics. We ordered pizza, we drank beer, I fucked you half-drunk to "Kashmir". The first time we ever had sex, and we did it twice. I still get kind of hard when I hear those songs.
That Facebook post sends me into a nostalgia spiral, and when I get back on the road and continue north, my head is full of shows we played and shows I saw, not just with you but all my years in Austin. For HAAM Day last year Ms S organized a country-themed lineup for Smith's - a whole day of bands and solo artists covering honky-tonk and country rock and whatever twangy banjo-inflected songs we could think of. Ally Pally covered Loretta Lynn, and even though PoD was supposed to be getting ready, I had to go out on the floor to watch Adrianne pretend to throw hands during "Fist City". Christian actually might have told you about it - he brought a friend onstage, a woman named Gina, and they sang Johnny and June Carter Cash's "Oh What a Good Thing We Had". Misha did "Old Town Road", and while you know my feelings for him and he did get some boos from the audience, I thought he did a great job.
Sunday All Day wrote a new song of their own, which might have been cheating, but the crowd loved it. Rob and Rich did "Foggy Mountain Breakdown", if you can believe that. I had no idea Rob could play the banjo. They were really impressive. And Gabe reached way back and got PoD to cover the Flying Burrito Brothers, "Dark End of the Street" and "Six Days on the Road". Chad joked that we should be wearing our best pearl-button cowboy shirts until Alex found some pictures of the band, and then he went around trying to get his hands on a bunch of embroidered jackets and telling us we needed to grow out our hair for the right 60s shag. Maybe that's where he got the idea for the direction of the new band, that twangy country thing. He could have been influenced by anyone who played that night, to be honest. It was a good time - good music (mostly, because not everyone is cut out for country, and some of the covers were... well, everyone tried) for a good cause.
Now I'm thinking about PoD's earliest shows, three of us with various degrees of nerves, Kim standing backstage, like he did for so many people, telling us to kick it in the ass, reassuring us we could do it. Gabe was always confident, always knew we'd be a success. AJ was just in it for a good time, and while he had the chops and knew was he was doing, in the early days he wasn't any more convinced of our future success than Chad and I were.
It's all I ever wanted to do - make music, play for people, cowrite some great songs. I've gotten to do it for seven years and I'm grateful, but I need a change. But it's hard to pull the plug and just do it. I'm committed to this new thing Chad and I started, I just have cut the cord with Gabe. Somehow. Without burning that bridge.
I wish I could ask Kim for advice. He'd tell me straight, he'd listen to our two songs and all of Chad's ideas and he'd tell us what he thought, whether it would sell or not, whether it was worth doing the way we want to do it. He'd make suggestions, he'd give advice. You'd think I had no one else to ask, but Kim was there in the beginning, he'd know how far we've come. He'd know how far I've come. He'd been around long enough to know how to judge a brand-new band. And he'd keep it a secret until we were ready to share.
I wish I knew how Gabe knew. Did I give it away? Did Chad? Did Jake say something? No, it wouldn't have been Jake. He and Gabe don't really talk, just because their paths don't really cross. Alex, maybe, picking up on a vibe.
If it was a year ago Chad and Jake and I could go to Ms S and say Listen to what we've got so far - will people come to hear this? Would you book us? And like Kim, she'd be honest with us. But she has too much going on right now and I'll be honest - it's one thing to look back at all the years and all the good times I had at Smith's, all the things it meant to me, and it's something else entirely to look ahead at a world where it doesn't exist any longer.
It's like your parents selling your childhood home. You can gather for Thanksgiving at their new place, but it's not the same. It will never be the same.
I don't like this big a change, when it's all out of my hands. You probably know that, it's not some great revelation, but right now it's not something I'm ready to deal with. It's hard. It's work. I just want to keep driving and not think about the future. But there isn't much to be gained from thinking about the past either.
I look around, now that I've smacked back into the present, and I don't know where I am. The landscape changes when I'm not paying attention, and all of a sudden it isn't so flat, or it isn't so brown, or it isn't so sunny. But I don't need to pay attention to the road - it's 84 almost all the way to the top of Oregon, and I know I'm not there yet. I'll see signs. My GPS will tell me where to go.
If I drive all day I'll get to you too late, and I can't do that to you. I've just been going until I can't anymore, and sleeping wherever I stop. I should have planned this trip better. I should have planned it in the first place.
At least you know I'm coming.
* * *
After you left, I didn't want to stay in our apartment but I just couldn't make myself move. I'd gotten used to living with someone, for one thing, and I didn't want (and couldn't really afford) to live by myself. Luckily Osric needed a place to live, so I had someone to split the rent with and keep me company while we both tried to find better digs. Chad and Gabe were looking for a roommate, so I took the opportunity. It made sense at the time, but if I'd thought about it for longer than ten minutes, if I hadn't been so desperate to get away from the rooms that reminded me of you, I would have realized that working with them was enough, and I didn't have to live with them too. I love Chad like a brother but I was spending so much more time with them, I couldn't get away from them, and Gabe especially liked to talk shop when we were all together, and there's only so much of that I can take.
Under other circumstances I wouldn't have minded so much - they're good roommates as roommates go, not entirely inconsiderate and willing to share chores and expenses, they don't bring girls over all the time, they're slobs in the kitchen but we managed to keep the place from becoming a pigsty - but it made me realize that even musicians need some work/life balance, and that means not living with the rest of the band.
The first few months were an adjustment, is what I'm saying. I locked myself out twice - the first time I just called Chad and he said to come meet him downtown, he was out with Rob and Rich but I could join them, but the second time I couldn't get anyone on the phone, no one was around or if they were they weren't free, I left messages everywhere and I really, really needed to get back into the house. I don't even remember why, I just remember that it was vitally important that I not be stuck outside.
So here I am, holding my phone in front of my face, yelling at Chad because I’m locked out of the god damn house and he’s the only one who’s still in town and has a key, and he’s not answering his fucking phone or any of the fucking texts I keep sending him. "But Jared," I hear you say in a sane, reasonable tone of voice, "why don’t you call the landlord?" A good question. I would have, except he lives way out past Georgetown and he’s really hard to get ahold of, and he hates coming to Austin even when he has to. "But Jared," I hear you say again, in the same reasonable tone of voice, "don’t you have an extra key under the mat or buried in a potted plant or something?" Well, we do now. I bought one of those fake stones and put two sets of keys in it in case this shit happens again. Gabe gave one of his friends a copy of the keys because he went through a phase when he locked himself out like every other week, but I don’t know this friend and couldn’t call them to let me in.
Now I'm thinking about the dumbshit things I did after we broke up, and this is embarrassing and sad, I shouldn't be sharing but I will anyway. Not long after you left, I’m at this club, Adrianne made me go, and I saw Justin - do you remember him? Blond, pretty, a regular at Smith's as a music fan - we’d met a couple of times but we didn't know each other that well. I’d had a lot to drink and I was broken up about you leaving, and I just wanted someone to want me, and he did. He’s so pretty but not the sharpest knife in the drawer. But I didn’t know that yet, I just knew he was hot and he was into me and he dragged me out onto the dance floor mostly so he could kiss me and I don’t know what we were thinking - no, okay, I do, at least I know what I was thinking - we kind of dragged each other into the men’s room and locked ourselves in a stall and I went down on him. The floor’s wet and gross - you know club bathrooms - and he’s so hard and we’re both hammered and I just can’t stop myself. I wanted to fuck him so badly when I was done, just bend him over and plow into him, but where do you fuck someone in the men’s room? Right? The stalls aren’t that big. He had to pull me to my feet when I was done with him, and he kissed me hard and said he could taste himself in my mouth and it was really hot. He grabbed my cock through my jeans and told me he wanted me to fuck him, and I’m not kidding, he pulls a condom from his back pocket.
"I’m a Boy Scout," he says, grinning and slapping it against my nose.
"Always prepared," I say, "loyal, trustworthy… uh… is ‘hot as hell’ in the handbook?"
He just laughed. Pretty but kind of dumb, did I say that already? But I was so hard it hurt and too drunk to care where I was as long as I got to fuck someone who wanted it.
It was… it wasn’t great. It was cramped and rushed and I was losing my balance and he was losing his balance - he kind of bent over the toilet tank - and I swear a couple guys came in while we were at it, but even though it wasn’t that good, even for drunk bathroom sex, it served its purpose. And he had a great ass.
So that was embarrassing - club bathrooms are disgusting and I just lost all control - and when I told Adrianne later, she said it was kind of sad, he should have taken me home first. "The bathroom’s not romantic," she said, as if people go to clubs to find romance. But he did take me home. We sucked face all the way back to his house but when we actually got there, we just passed out. He let me take a shower in the morning before I went home, by which I mean he joined me in the shower and kissed me until I thought I was going to drown, and then he jerked me off, and then I went home. I didn’t expect to see him again. It was going to be a one-off and that was fine. I should probably be embarrassed about that, but whatever, I wanted one thing from him and I thought he just wanted the one thing from me, and we both got it, everyone’s happy.
So of course a couple weeks later we start dating. Last time I had sex in a men’s room, though. I wouldn’t even let him blow me backstage after a show. But he was a good fuck and a great kisser. That mouth, Jesus. Can I tell you that? Is it weird? I’m going to tell you that, and then you can tell me about whoever you dated after me, what they were like.
We were together a year, me and Justin. I wanted to think he wanted me that whole time - he never stopped telling me I was the hottest man alive, or at least the hottest man in Texas - and I guess I really needed that from someone, for more than just a night. I wanted to be wanted. But as pretty as he was, and as good as he was in bed - my god, that mouth - he wasn’t the brightest bulb and I was used to you. He was fun, I’ll give him that, and he has a good heart, as my mom would say, but I couldn’t believe we were together as long as we were. I don’t think he could really believe it either, to be honest. We never even talked about moving in together, which should have been a sign it was only ever going to be temporary. We broke up by kind of mutual agreement, and next I heard, he was fucking some guy who worked in a bank and played in a Charlie Daniels cover band on weekends.
And still, about four months after we split I ran into him at Smith’s - there was this band called Little Dog Laughed, from Fargo of all places, and the Other Kim just would not shut up about how good they were, so I went to make her happy - and maybe because we were both pretty well lubricated I briefly wished he was still single so I could take him home and fuck him six ways to Sunday. He wasn't, and I didn't. His time had passed. I haven't really seen him since.
I drive into and out of state forests in Oregon - they're green, everything's turning green - and over the border into Washington but I can't show up at your doorstep at midnight so it's time to stop for now. I must be tired from all the thinking and driving and reminiscing because I fall right to sleep and when I wake up I actually feel rested. The motel isn't much but the bed is fine and I guess I just needed a lot of hours in it.
I'm on the road in good time and it's overcast and threatens rain the entire drive. I can't even pay attention to the scenery, I'm so wound up over finally getting to you. It's been a long time. You never told me not to come, you sounded as willing to welcome me as I wanted you to, and the closer I get the more nervous I am. What if this really is a mistake? What if I get there and you change your mind about me? What if I change my mind about you?
Not that I think I will, but there's always a chance.
I give you a heads-up when my GPS tells me I'm twenty minutes away. I get lost so it's more like thirty-five. I park, I ring the bell, I panic.
What am I doing here? Why did I come? Now that I'm on your front steps, in front of your door, I'm second-guessing everything like it's a competition I need to win. What if you're on the other side of the door thinking this is a huge mistake, that you shouldn't have let me drive all this way to see you? What if you're thinking you don't want me here after all? I know it's been some time since we broke up, but is it enough time for you to get over it, enough time to forgive me for the dumb shit I did and said, enough time to forgive yourself for leaving town and leaving me?
I can forgive you. I did forgive you. If I didn't still love you, didn't still trust you, I wouldn't be here.
I take a deep breath, try to calm myself down. You open the door.
"Long time no see," you tell me, and you grin.
I don't know what to say. You don't look any different. If I didn't know better I'd think we just saw each other yesterday, not two years ago.
"Jared," you say, and your voice is gentle, like it was on the phone when I stopped outside Lubbock to tell you I was coming. You pull me inside, put your arms around me.
It's as if we never broke up, as if you never left me. I clench my hands in your shirt, hold you tight enough to crack your ribs, press my face into your neck.
What made me think this was a bad idea? Why did I ever think you might not welcome me back?
"It's okay," you murmur. "It's okay."
It's not okay, I want to say. I can keep it together for the length of time it takes me to drive here, 2100 miles across half the country, but the minute I see you I fall apart. There's nothing holding me together, nothing holding me up, but you.
"Come on," you say, finally. "Come in."
"I am in," I mumble into your shoulder. You laugh. I'm not intending to be funny, but I'm okay with it if you think I am.
"You know what I mean." I let go of your shirt, let go of you, and stand back. You look me up and down, and I return the favor. "You look good. You haven't changed."
"You haven't either."
"I don't have to shave as much." You grin. I liked it when you let your scruff grow out a little, so I don't think this is a bad thing, but it's not a conversation we're going to have - you ask if I'm hungry (no, surprisingly enough) or do I want something to drink (a soda would be great), and then you sit me on the couch and say "Tell me everything."
And I do.
You just sit there after I finish, apparently thinking.
"I don't know what to do," I say.
"First," you tell me, "you need to tell Gabe you're leaving. When you get back, you and Chad need to sit him down and have a talk. Treat it like you're telling your boss you're quitting your job - professional, not personal. You and Chad aren't leaving PoD and forming your own band because you hate Gabe. Right?"
I nod. "I am kind of tired of playing with him, though."
"Don't tell him that. No, I know you're not stupid, you won't say that. Tell him you appreciate your years in PoD, you learned a lot, it was a great experience, whatever - lie a little if you have to - but you want to go in a different direction. You want to try a different sound. He won't say 'Oh, Potatoes of Defiance can do that', will he?"
"We've played the same thing for seven years. If he wanted the band to change, we would have done it by now."
"As for Kim...." You spread your hands. "I think you just have to sit with your grief until it doesn't hurt so much. Recognize that he was a mentor and a formative influence and honor his memory by, I don't know, making the best music you can."
"It's weird to not see him backstage or walking around talking to Ms S."
"Did I tell you he asked me once if I'd ever consider singing professionally?"
I shake my head.
"Lucy Long was warming up, doing a sound check, I don't even remember why I was at Smith's in the first place, but Jason was running late so I got onstage to sing in his place. I know all their songs and Christian never cared if I sang with them. It was fun but I wasn't serious. But Kim was out on the floor listening to us, and when Jason finally showed up and I jumped off the stage he asked me if I'd ever been in a band - I said no - and did I ever think about it. I said I did sometimes, but just because I'd been hanging around Christian and Jason and Steve for so long, it felt like a natural thing to do. He said I had a good stage presence and a great voice, and I should think about it."
"I know you can sing," I tell you.
"Yeah, I know that too. But I don't want to do it for a living. I don't even want to do it as a side gig. My parents made me sing in the church choir when I was a kid and ever since then I just... it's not for me."
I remember you used to sing in the shower, and you'd sing in the car, and sometimes you'd sing PoD songs at me if I was being an ass about touring, but I also remember you never had any interest in singing in front of a crowd, except maybe sometimes at karaoke, and only if you had a couple of beers first.
"You know," you say, and I can tell you're changing the subject, "seven years is a good stretch of time for a band."
"Cliffdiver has been together for ten," I point out, and maybe their longevity is because they're not stagnating. Their sound has drifted and changed even in the last couple of years. Gabe should take a lesson from them. Rachel and Brianna would be glad to sit him down and have a chat. "I can't believe Smith's is closing."
"You're not alone. I can't believe it either, and I haven't really thought about it since I left Austin. It was a good place. A lot of good things came out of it."
"Is a good place."
"Jared."
"What? It's not dead and buried yet."
But I know I'm being stupid. Ms S made her official announcement. Kim's memorial was understood to be the last show. The curtain's coming down and I just have to accept it.
"Did Ms S ever fix that toilet in the men's room?" you ask, and it takes me a minute to bring myself out of my residual misery. "The one in the middle."
"No," I tell you. "It still makes the weirdest noises and rattles like it's going to explode. British Mark is always saying 'That is alarming'. Plumbers keep coming but none of them have been able to make it stop. Alona thinks it's haunted."
"She thinks the toilet is haunted?" You raise an eyebrow.
"Yeah." I chuckle. "Rob and Rich wrote a joke song about it - 'Toilet Ghost'. They played a show on her birthday one year - complete coincidence - that just happened to be the night they booked - and dedicated it to her from the stage, even though she wasn't even there. For about a week it was their most-downloaded song. The rest of Sunday All Day wanted to write a response but she said no. She takes her ghosts very seriously."
Chad wanted the two groups to start writing diss tracks about each other, and was so disappointed when Alona refused to be a part of it. I almost felt bad for her, but at the same time, who ever heard of a single haunted toilet out of an entire music club? It wasn't as if a drugged-out music fan died in the can, like Elvis, only to haunt that one stall for the rest of time.
Onward!