12. Chase
Just because Chase had seen the band play once, it didn’t mean he needed to join the band.
This had been a terrible idea.
If it wasn’t obvious enough by the fourth time they cut off the chorus of the same song within the past ten minutes, then it certainly was when Zak said, “You know what the key to fixing pitch is?”
Obviously not, or else he would have done it the last time she told him he was off. He shook his head.
“I can tell you what it’s not. Getting quieter.” She slapped the microphone, sending a screech reverberating off the walls of their apartment. “You have a mic, Chase. There is no reason I should be able to hear Dallas over you. Got it?”
No, but he would try again.
And again.
And again.
Eventually, after Chase was red in the face and sweating like he had run a marathon, Edge flipped the strap on his bass guitar over his head, announced he needed to go help out at his parents’ restaurant, and they could pick things up where they left off tomorrow. “Oh, and by the way, nice work today, Chase.”
Yeah, right.
Chase knew a pity compliment when he heard one, and that screamed pity compliment. He looked like an idiot, standing there awkwardly, flanked by four people who didn’t even look like they were trying—that was how well they knew these songs. After all, they wrote them.
And while he was busy trying to figure out the difference between sharp and flat whenever someone shouted out one-syllable, or worse, one-letter corrections—like any of it meant anything to him—Zak was busy giving him other vague criticisms to worry about. Like, “It needs more dirt,” or, “Your voice sounds tight, you need to loosen it up.” As if there was some type of vocal yoga he could sign up for.
They were speaking an entirely different language, and Chase was the foreigner responding in nods, smiles, and OKs, and trying not to appear as hopelessly confused as he was.
And the most pathetic part of all? He didn’t mind, because when she was giving him feedback he didn’t understand and getting frustrated with him for screwing up and not knowing how to fix it, at least she was talking to him instead of blowing him off like she did the rest of the time.
They’d been at it for three weeks, and she was nothing if not disciplined with her boundaries. Not that he understood those either, and not that she would give him a chance to try when she’d made sure to be the last person in the room and the first person out of it every day.
Today included. Zak was quick to volunteer as Edge’s ride and was out the door ahead of him.
“Okay, so what really happened between the two of you?” Alex asked as Chase helped him and Dallas swap the equipment back out with the living room furniture. “It’s like Mortal Kombat in here, except your button is broken and she’s massacring you over and over again.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” It was all Chase had. He kept trying to prove he wasn’t a jerk, which was difficult when he wasn’t sure why she thought he was a jerk.
“I wouldn’t worry about it.” Dallas stacked a few amps on top of one another against the wall. “Zak doesn’t like anyone at first. She’s got a chip on her shoulder. Makes her a total bitch sometimes, but it’s also why she’s a fuckin’ machine on the guitar. Grudges make geniuses. Probably why you’re as good as you are too, huh?”
It took Chase a moment to register the meaning. He by no means thought of himself as some sort of vocal prodigy, and didn’t think his motivation was a grudge so much as it was desperation to not feel numb. But maybe that was a form of grudge, too. Against himself.
So, he nodded and said, “Sure, if you say so.”
Dallas walked off. The bathroom door creaked shut, and then water sputtered out of the showerhead.
“Seems like you’ve been awfully hard on yourself to learn the songs,” Alex said.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Chase confided in him. As if such an obvious fact could be a secret. “I feel like an idiot already, and that’s before adding in the whole TV thing.”
Alex checked the room, like the others were about to bust out of the drywall, and motioned for Chase to sit next to him on the couch. “Wanna hear a secret?”
“Depends.” Chase took a seat and, following the other man’s lead, leaned in. “Is it the kind that’ll get me in trouble with the law?” Or with Zak?
“No.” Alex smiled.
“Go for it.”
“I didn’t know how to play the drums when they asked me to join the band.”
Chase stared at him blankly. “You’re kidding.”
“I am dead serious.”
They both burst out laughing at the same time, and when it died off, Chase asked, “How did that work?”
“I used to have this habit of tapping along on things when I was listening to music. With pencils, soda cans, books, whatever. It drove my parents and probably everybody else nuts. But I didn’t even know I was doing it half the time.
“I had just left home and was on my way to San Francisco the day we all met. I got hungry and stopped at this little Mexican restaurant, and the four of them were there, too. Zak and Edge were playing, and then Dallas and Link came in, and I was in the corner doing my stupid tapping shit with a fork and a steak knife.” Alex hung his head and chuckled again.
“Zak came right up to me after they all finished playing her song, and she said, ‘Are you a drummer?’ I had never touched a drum set in my life. Didn’t know the first thing about technique or rhythm. But as soon as she asked me that, I thought to myself, Why not? I could be a drummer. So I said, ‘Yeah, I am.’ Used the rest of my cash on a kit. I lied to the others and told them I needed to save up to buy one, and I spent months teaching myself how to hit the drums before finally working up the courage to play with the band.”
“And they never found out?”
“No. I mean, I’m sure they could tell I was inexperienced, but we all were. We all kind of learned together. Grew up together.” A distant expression crossed Alex’s face that he bricked off. “Anyway, all this to say, you’re going to be okay. Music isn’t science, it’s art. It isn’t about how many years you’ve put in or how much theory you know, though those things help. You’ve just gotta feel it.”
“I don’t know if I feel it,” Chase said. Most of the time, he felt stressed.
Then again, Zak seemed stressed when she was working on something in her notebook and it wasn’t coming out the way she wanted. She would frown and scribble over words and write new ones, and then scribble again. Stress was part of anything worthwhile because it was part of caring.
He wasn’t sure how to compare it to the feeling of playing hockey, the only point of reference he had, because it didn’t. Music was finding slivers of life and soul in dark spaces. It was describing things that no words existed for. There was nothing in the world like it.
“I think you do, otherwise you wouldn’t be up here busting your ass and taking the abuse every day.” Alex clapped him on the shoulder and stood.
“I’m just trying to keep up,” Chase said, and went to grab a glass of water.
Only, something snapped as he picked up the pliers this time.
He was sick of having to wrench the water faucet on. Sick of having to wrestle the sliding glass door open. Sick of listening to water droplets going plink, plink, plink into the bucket beneath the bathroom vanity to catch the drip from the drain. Sick of how Zak was lining some landlord’s pockets to live in this rundown, piece of shit unit while maintenance sat around on their asses. And especially sick of not being able to say or do anything about it for fear of pissing her off again.
Chase had been there and done that, and he was so tired of doing nothing. Everyone else had work outside of the band. It was time he found some work to do as well.
“Hey, do you have a spare key?”
Alex pointed to the kitchen drawer. “Not gonna steal a guitar or something, are you?”
Chase rifled through the cooking utensils until he found the key. “Pretty sure she’d hunt me down and kill me for that.”
Alex chuckled darkly. “Slowly.”
Chances were, she’d kill him for what he was about to do anyway, but at least the last sound he heard wouldn’t be plink, plink, plink.