Chapter 19 #2
And with that, he doesn’t even wait for Ray or Carol to reply, shoving the pipe between his teeth so he can use his hand to open the door.
He slams it behind himself once out in the hall.
Breath after breath, he huffs, winded, tasting the flavor of the pipe in his mouth.
He plucks it out, staring at it, the world swirling around him.
He’s about to turn to the right, headed toward his own room—
“Hey.”
A voice to his left catches him off guard. He looks, and sees that it’s Pat. “Oh, uh, hey,” he says sheepishly.
“What was going on in there? Sounded like you guys were yelling,” Pat says, pointing her thumb towards the door.
“Oh it’s—it’s nothing.” Gene shrugs.
“No one yells over ‘nothing’.”
“I mean…” He sighs.
Pat taps her foot, hands on her hips, frowning. “Please don’t lie to me. I hate being lied to.”
Gene huffs out another long breath. He licks his lips. “I just—I just don’t like being around Carol…”
“Look, I know stuff went on with you, Carol, and Ray back during the tour. But it’s been about a couple months now—if you guys are still going to clash about this, now that we’re all living together…”
“It’s fine, it’s fine.” Gene shakes his head. “Maybe… maybe I was just overreacting. I don’t know. I just wanted to write songs with Ray, when she showed up. I got mad.” His shoulders are still shaking from merely thinking about it.
“She’s allowed to go into her own room if she wants.”
“Yeah, but that’s not the point.” Gene presses his lips into a flat line, fidgeting with the pipe in his hand. “I think I just need to cool off. Smoke some more.”
“Maybe you should apologize to Ray, too, if you upset him. And Carol,” Pat says as she crosses her arms.
Gene thinks for a moment before he speaks. “I’ll apologize later. I don’t want to go back in there right now.”
“That’s fair.” Pat nods. “I’m just looking out for you guys. I’m in this band too, y’know. I want everyone to get along.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course. Thanks, Pat.”
She’s right, and it’s something Gene needs to remind himself about—there’s more than just himself and Ray in this band, and he needs to consider what’s best for everyone.
Getting mad at Ray for something so small isn’t going to help.
But he still hopes he can figure out a way to write with Ray in private, just the two of them, since there won’t be any songs for the Brooms to play at all if they can’t effectively create any.
He should be fine. They’ll work it out. All he needs to do is smoke a little more, relax, and calm down.
March, 1976
Gene has, for the most part, calmed down.
Ray certainly thinks so, and he’s glad of it.
Gene had apologized to him about his outburst the day after, and he’d told Ray that he felt it was important that if they want to create new songs, that he wants to do it with no one else around.
Ray understood that. He thought about it more, and yes, that was how they’d always done it in the past. Changing up the routine with someone listening in would probably seem strange.
Ray had just wanted to be polite to Carol—she is his girlfriend, after all.
He wanted to involve her if she was interested.
But it’s not what Gene wants, and Ray wants to respect his best friend’s wishes, too. It’s been fine.
Presently, the Dusty Brooms are all in the studio to record yet another single.
They’d recently released ‘Wild Girls’ as a single in January, which has been performing phenomenally in the charts.
The January Creem issue with the feature for the Brooms has also been a huge blessing, along with Dennis hooking them up left and right with more radio interviews at their local Detroit stations.
Overall, the band is doing better than Ray could’ve ever imagined while still being so new.
It’s no joke that their music is resonating with people all across the country.
His heart races, incredibly excited for them to depart for their first nation-wide tour next month.
For the studio versions of their songs, they’ve recorded some additional parts that they wouldn’t normally feature in their live versions.
Santiago has been overdubbing piano and organ layers for many of their tracks, even dabbling with a mellotron, and then for this new song in particular, they have on a session trumpet player.
Ray has heard that Dennis was negotiating for some additional musicians to tour with them, to be able to perform these extra parts live.
It sure would help, Ray believes, amplifying their sound—a fuller concert experience.
Besides, it’s not like Santi can play the guitar and the piano at the same time.
Although that would be a pretty funny sight.
Most of the instrumental track for this song, ‘Burn it Down’, has been recorded, and the Brooms are taking a break, lounging in the main room behind the sound engineer on various folding chairs or the floral-patterned couch.
Carol isn’t among them, but that’s actually because she’d found work elsewhere.
Dennis had performed some magic in the dark arts, asking a contact from his company Active Sound who knew someone who knew someone who could hook Carol up with a modeling gig.
She’d expressed to Ray how it’s been a dream of hers to model, and Ray certainly thinks she could excel at it with her lovely figure.
Hopefully, if all goes well, they can set something up for her to take gigs while they’re touring in New York and California.
Gene is sitting next to Ray on the couch, their thighs brushing against each other.
This is about as physical as they have been lately, not any more than that, not like before.
Oddly, it sort of feels like their friendship has been put in a weird standstill.
Gene’s been hiding in his room a lot ever since they moved to the Lake Orion farmhouse, and Ray knows exactly what he’s been doing in there—the smell of weed assaults his nostrils whenever Gene’s door cracks open.
Sure, they still hang out one-on-one occasionally for writing songs, but that’s about all they’ve been doing period.
If it’s not something for the band, it seems like Gene hasn’t wanted to hang at all.
Which puts a hole in Ray’s heart—more than anything, he’s been yearning for the comfort of Gene’s embrace.
Carol has been great sexually, but he can’t shake the feeling that something else is missing, no matter what.
No matter fucking what, he can’t get Gene out of his head.
“Let’s hear it again, from the top,” Ray says to the resident sound engineer. “Then I think we’ll be good to record the main vocals.”
“Alright.” The sound engineer flips a switch, then pushes up some levers for equalizing the sound channels.
Music plays from the speakers, surrounding the Brooms with their own instrumental.
Gene’s powerful rhythm guitar and Pat’s hard-hitting backbeat boom throughout the room, though there is still some negative space that needs to be filled.
It’s the sort of song that sounds rather strange without the vocals—but that’ll shortly be fixed.
Ray adores what he’s hearing, and once the track is over, he pats Gene’s thigh to get his attention.
“Let’s head up now,” Ray says.
“Yeah, sure.” Gene smiles. He takes a drag from his cigarette as they stand up, then puts it out on a nearby ashtray before they both walk into the recording booth.
The two slip on their headphones over their ears, standing in front of a single microphone.
Their voices melt together so perfectly when recorded directly into the same mic—balancing each other, complementing the other’s tone.
Ray starts singing the verse, keeping his eyes on Gene as he waits for his cue to harmonize in the chorus. They sing together:
“Ohhhh, we could burn this whole place down…
Oh-ohhh…. we could burn this whole place down…”
As much as Ray’s the frontman and lead singer, this band is just as much Gene’s as it is his. If either of them were to leave, they would no longer be the Dusty Brooms.
“Baby I don’t think this world can go on,
like this, something else is rising with the dawn.
Oh baby, burn it all down…
Burn it all down…”
They sing, pouring out their souls into the melody. Ray’s face is dangerously close to Gene’s, so close their cheeks brush against each other’s, feeling the heat of the other’s breath. One wrong move, and I could kiss him…
But that would be a terrible idea, with the entire band’s eyes on them, staring through the glass that separates the two rooms. So Ray shuts down the thought.
He focuses on Gene’s voice, the music itself, and they finish the take with a wonderful high that spreads through Ray’s whole body.
The last note of Gene’s guitar in the recording rings long and strong.
Ray looks into Gene’s gorgeous hazel eyes—he sees a spark, and a smile that lights up the entire room.
A smile meant just for him.