Lo Fi

Chapter 1

1.

Justin Wilson is alive. My phone pings with the news, in a text from Julien, who has sent a link from the Nashville Scene. A crashing headache—like someone playing Metallica full blast, forever and always—threatens to crack through the front of my skull. I read the news in bed.

He was hospitalized, and it’s unclear from the article whether what happened was intentional or accidental, but yes, substances were involved. There was a lengthy, private stay in a facility in East Tennessee. Off the grid, of course. And now an outpatient rehab facility in California.

The article is only a paragraph or two, and I scroll back through the sparse updates from the past several months. I wonder now if there was so little information simply because people didn’t know—whether he was going to live or die, whether it was purposeful or accidental. Maybe people really can keep a secret when something is serious enough. Regardless, he’s alive. Whether he wants to be or not.

Right after my open mic—the Incident—I kept saying to Sloane: Kill me.

She laughed and rolled her eyes, saying it really wasn’t that big a deal. It wasn’t as bad as I thought. But the night had been so humiliating that all I could think about were ways to scrape the memory from my consciousness, or scrape my consciousness altogether.

She’d convinced me to play at a little spot that served two-for-one drinks on Thursdays, right down the street from our house. Divey, but actually new, just across from the old Belcourt Theatre. A storm had been rolling in, over-puffed cumulus clouds crowding the dusk sky. Distant lightning flashing as we walked.

The bar was emptier than I’d expected, and only one other person had shown up to play the open mic. A high schooler, I thought: hunched shoulders and greasy skin, a nicer guitar than I had. When the bar manager announced the songwriting evening (generous word), I heard an audible groan from a group of Vanderbilt kids who’d ducked in to avoid the storm.

I felt ill, anxiety seeping out of every pore as I settled into the chair on a covered pallet in the corner. This, apparently, was the stage. I wore jean shorts and a flannel, and already I could tell I’d made a mistake—the shorts tight, my legs sticking to the leather of the chair, my Taylor acoustic pressing uncomfortably against my thigh. I looked to Sloane and took a large sip of beer, then another and another. I knew my fear was an overreaction; this wasn’t the fucking Grammys. But this was worse, right? Playing for people who absolutely did not want to hear you play? The bar manager eyed me again. I looked for Sloane but she’d disappeared. More students poured in, shouting cheap beer orders to a suddenly weeded bartender. The bar was neither full nor empty now.

When I spoke into the mic, my voice was shaking but booming. Far too loud over the quiet bar. I felt like I was interrupting every conversation. A cluster of girls glanced at me, sighed, then pulled their stools into a far corner. Where the fuck was Sloane? Feedback over the mic, a few people placing their hands over their ears. Everyone in the bar had crowded to the back; they were already drunk, and I was not drunk enough. I heard someone say Let’s gooooo, and the manager looked at me like: Well?

Now my headache is still pulsing. Load-in is in forty-five minutes.

Nick is in Nashville.

I need to pull my life together. At least right now.

The city is a muted slab behind me as I drive to The Venue, the sun a low sliver of citrus in the sky. Sloane and I have just gotten back from Thanksgiving with her family in Rhode Island, and when we landed it was officially fucking cold. The winter days here, I’m learning, are desperately short. The sun sets even earlier than it did in Michigan. Sometimes, by the time I wake up and shake loose my hangover, walk Lou Reed, and start to feel like an actual person, there are just a few hours of sunlight left.

It’s frigid when I step outside the car, my leather jacket useless. We’re supposed to get snow tonight and it’s all anyone can talk about. Grocery store clerks, baristas, the mailman. Suddenly everyone’s an armchair meteorologist, preaching about dew points and barometer measurements and the meager amount of road salt the city has on hand. Andy and Julien have been at The Venue all day, talking to artists, vendors, distributors, promoters. Trying to plan for shows that are happening later this weekend. People are canceling flights, moving dates, preparing for some kind of apocalypse. Sloane’s even purchased a dog parka and little snow booties for Lou Reed and filled our fridge with Yuenglings and frozen pizzas. Inside, The Venue is barely warmer than the parking lot.

The caustic cold reminds me of Michigan, of the winters on campus when cheap beers would freeze on back porches, and your breath would fog the path before you on your way to classes that were never canceled, however brutal the cold. I’d met Nick on a night like that. Here, though, the cold was a personal affront. A bitchy, anemic insult after weeks and weeks of “winter” that barely dropped into the low forties. The mild temperatures we get in December are supposed to be our gift for the cruel summers.

Upstairs in the office: Andy, pale in the weak winter light, wearing a flannel over a T-shirt. Julien still in a flimsy coat, practically a windbreaker. Eddie, thankfully not on the schedule tonight. The rest of us are wildly underdressed for the weather. We don’t know how to brace for it, where to buy sweaters that actually shield us from the elements, coats that can actually cover our bodies.

—Hunter, there you are. Can you grab a few space heaters out of storage? HVAC guy is on his way. This should tide us over till doors at least.

—Sure, I say. How many do you want?

I look to Julien but he’s barely looked up from his computer since I walked in.

—Two or three is fine, Andy says. I think there’s four up there. Load-in is in twenty. Headliner’s running a little behind. These are friends of yours, right?

—Yeah, the headliners. Sort of. Hi, I say to Julien.

I haven’t seen him since we kissed. His fingers stop typing, and he glances up. Finally.

—Hey, he says. Welcome back. How was Rhode Island?

—It was good, yeah, Sloane’s family is wild. I’ll tell you more later, I say.

Andy pulls a key off a set of masters—they must have started locking the second space—and hands it to me.

—Storage space, he says. I think you know how to get up there, yeah?

Ice cold, my fingers numb, my steps quick, hoping my body can collect some heat if I walk fast enough. This time, the lights work up here when I flick them on. The cold presses against me, a freezing hand to the face. Two space heaters—hulking, ancient—sit behind a ten-foot bar with a peeling linoleum countertop. A cockroach scurries into the darkness across the bar. Outside, feathery bits of snow are starting to fall. I palm a bit of condensation off the window; Nick’s van isn’t here yet. For a moment, my whole body is so cold I wonder if I’ll ever be warm again.

At my staff check-in with Andy, he asked me how I was feeling. I wanted to say: I’ve cried on the porch at Julien’s, the floor of my closet, my car; my ex-boyfriend’s music is following me everywhere; I haven’t talked to my family in months. I almost had your bartender’s baby. Sometimes I wake up certain that I’m underwater. I can’t breathe. Sometimes I’m sure that I’m dying.

Instead I told him I couldn’t stay away.

—From? he asked.

—From all of it, I said. The artists. The songwriting. The bands. The Venue, I guess.

He laughed, a crease in his forehead like a slice of shadow. For a moment I wondered how old he was, if I would ever be that old.

Then I said something I didn’t even see coming, surprised to hear myself ask:

—You know that second space we have? Upstairs?

—What, that storage room?

—Yeah, I said. I think we could do something more with it.

—Like what? he asked.

In the office, the afternoon is fading quickly. Dim violet light shifts through the fogged-up windows. Colt is back behind the bar, but he doesn’t see me. Back from tour, I guess, and barely even a hello. Julien is still on his laptop. Dark green corduroys and a black Bowie T-shirt, his flimsy jacket now on the lip of the couch. His lips are too pale, the color of an overused pencil eraser.

—Hi again, he says. Sorry. Today’s a mess.

—Sorry. Is there anything I can do to help? Besides, I guess, just my actual job.

He smiles, the room warms. His porch—hot wine, cool night. Did I want to kiss him again? The sound of a van door closing in the parking lot. My body pulls toward the window, but I stay still.

—How was your—did you go to Minnesota? I ask.

—I didn’t, he says.

—Oh.

—Had to work.

We were only closed for Thanksgiving proper, and I thought Julien had headed home, to Minnesota, unfathomably far away. He looks tired now, faint circles of indigo beneath his eyes, his lips irritated from the cold.

—I can’t believe Justin Wilson’s alive, I said.

—I know.

—You got a case! I say now, spotting a horn-shaped plastic thing in his bag.

—I did, he says.

Colt pops his head in.

—Anybody got a lighter? he asks. And then: Oh, hey you. When did you get here?

—A few minutes ago, I say. How was tour?

Andy tosses him a lighter; Colt’s eyes are lit up. Too shimmery—high—for the moment. Later, he mouths at me.

—All right, we got two of three pulling up for load-in. Let’s get these guys situated and then everybody can take a break before doors open.

No sign of Nick on my phone, just a text from last week that he’d see me today, would I be working? Downstairs he’s still not here. The openers are Goodnight, Goodnight and the Last Relay, both bands unloading their gear as the snow falls steadily in the waning afternoon light. The doors to the two vans are thrown open, their black instrument cases looking like little dominoes beneath the dusting of snow in the lot. A bouquet of cigarettes, weed, and fried food pours out of the vans. Guitar straps and plastic grocery bags and a roll of paper towels. Danny helps them carry most of their own shit up the back stairs and I slam the doors to the vans behind them, taking in the Mexican blankets and dream catchers, the loose joints and water bottles and sour straws and gas station coffee cups.

Nick and me in the tour van, the parking lot of the Blind Pig, dysfunctional parking lights flickering on and off and on and off overhead. A shitty hotel—Best Western? Doubletree?—outside Detroit. In the shower, up against the off-white tile, coming so hard my atoms felt rearranged. Cleveland, in an alley behind the House of Blues. Chicago, backstage—the Vic, probably—on my knees. Drunk. Reckless.

Nick, in my city; Julien over my shoulder.

—I need you to talk to the bands, Julien says. The guest list is too long.

—Okay, which one?

He seems—

—Headliner, he says. Your, uh, your friend.

Angry. He seems angry, his words clipped like he’s trying to preserve syllables. Stressed.

—How many people do they have? I ask.

—Too many, he says. One person per band member, not five.

—So now we’re getting tight on the lists?

He looks at me like I’m Eddie and I stare back, hot.

I want to argue, but I know I won’t win. Julien usually handles the guest lists, deals with the issues. And then I think: Who else in Nashville is Flirtation Device putting on this fucking list?

—Fine, I say, holding my hand out.

When he passes me the sheet, it catches in the web of skin between my thumb and index finger, quick and ruthless, leaving a slice the color of the inside of a grapefruit.

Campbell Brannen. Ellen Carpenter. Alyce Hampton. Garret Effler. Ellen Porter. Chelsea Majoy. Allison Harris. Allison Hunter. Jenni Zenaro. Ted Forrey. Bo Stubner. Jessika P. Julien’s not wrong. The list is too long. Obviously I don’t need to be on it, but if you’re gonna put me on it, at least spell my name right. I scratch out the extra l, then scratch out my name altogether, like I don’t even exist. It’s three thirty—still no Nick. Andy tells me to take a break, come back around sound check at five, after the heat’s fixed. Colt tries to get me to have a drink with him at the bar.

What I say: No, I need to get out of here.

What I mean: If I stay, I’ll spend the whole afternoon looking out the window for Nick.

—If the list is too long, why don’t you take Jessika off? I ask Julien.

He glances down at his phone, then back up at me.

—I’m just saying, I assume she’s your guest, not the band’s. You know the band’s people take priority.

—She works with the opener, Julien says. She’s not my guest.

—Without her, it’s eleven.

—What’s your deal with her? he asks. I thought you two were—

—What’s yours? I ask.

—We need to get it down to eight, Al.

—Ten is fine. I obviously don’t need to be on it.

I cross Jess’s name off the list. Above us: the sound of microphones being tested, amps buzzing with feedback. I pass the sheet back to Julien and he shakes his head, our hands lingering for a moment on opposite corners of the paper. He’ll let her in either way, I know. Jess is one of those people—like Sloane—where it doesn’t really matter if she’s on the list or not. She’ll get in.

Have I thought of Julien in the two weeks since we kissed? Of course. For the first half of the holiday break, it was all I thought about. The intensity of the kiss itself, the slow, sober determination of it. The fear wrapped around all the feelings expanding in my chest as his tongue pressed softly against mine, thinking that I hadn’t even been sure he liked me all that much until that exact moment.

We texted over the break—more than our usual short exchanges, starting with him sending a simple: dinner was fun the other night, to which I responded: it was. And when Sloane’s mom overserved me one night, I even wrote out how I was actually feeling to him: I kinda wish I was at the venue with u right now. But before I could send it, I stumbled on a photo he’d recently been tagged in online. Julien’s eyes a little bloodshot, a wide-eyed blonde next to him in one of those casual but intimate poses: her head on his shoulder in the booth of a cozy-looking bar. It didn’t take long to work out that this was an old friend—an old flame?—someone he’d gone to high school with, maybe. I thought of our conversation months before, when he’d mentioned someone from back home, someone he talked to here and there. If he wasn’t in Minnesota, had she been in Nashville while Sloane’s mom was pouring me another negroni in Rhode Island? Had she been there just to see Julien? My chest collapsed in a kind of confused, ethereal sadness. So yes, of course, I have thought of Julien—the kiss, the dinner, the playing, the kiss, the kiss again. But then I think of the picture, or of Jessika, or a song of Nick’s comes on, or a friend brings up the show or I get a text from Colt, and then I am—where was I?

I head off to the coziest place I know: a brewery taproom tucked in the same factory building as Sloane’s office, behind the railroad tracks in a dilapidated offshoot of downtown, all warehouses and gravel lots and empty commercial real estate. It won’t be this way for long. The city is morphing before our eyes, little bits of land snatched up, filling up with steakhouses and condos and juice bars and condos and taquerias and condos and yoga studios and condos, and then more condos, a few more condos. But right now the taproom is still here, and all I want is to be somewhere warm. The bar is so tiny that even when the line for a drink is only four or five deep, people start spilling into the echoey brick hallway. A space this small and crowded can’t be anything but warm.

When I sit down, the bartender slides me a pale ale before I even order. He’s an older guy with long, dark hair in a ponytail. He grins and I want to marry him. Sloane arrives moments later, quicker than I expected.

—I thought you were working tonight, she says. I thought tonight was the big night or whatever. Your BIB is in town.

—My BIB?

I take a sip of my beer. Almost instantly the pain in my forehead starts to fizzle and fade.

—Your boy in a band, Sloane says, motioning at the bartender, mouthing her order. Nick seems worthy of an acronym—even though we’re actively trying to forget him. Right? We’re still trying to forget him?

—He’s not mine, I say. And no. Not tonight. Lost cause. We’ll be trying tomorrow.

Sloane nods. Another coppery, frothy beer appears in front of us and she slides a debit card across the concrete bar.

—Sure, Sloane says. Fuck tonight. And you have to keep a deep bench. Remember? A good orbit. Minus Colt. Colt’s off the bench. I can only stay for ten minutes, by the way. We’re prepping for an interview tomorrow and I’m not really off yet. Oh, did I tell you?

—Tell me what?

—I’m doing it. I mean, we’re doing it. I’m working on Billy to give us a slot for a show. Seriously, Al. I’m writing a proposal.

—As in an actual radio show?

—No, a Broadway show. She rolls her eyes and takes a slug of beer.

—I didn’t know you were actually serious about it, I say.

—Where have you been? And yes, an actual radio show. I do work at an actual fucking radio station, right? Just imagine: we can play whatever we want. And it’s not like you have to get onstage to do it. No one will know who we are.

—But don’t you need to be, like, an actual DJ to host a show?

—Please, Sloane says. Like hosting a radio show is a real job. Speaking of—shouldn’t you be at The Venue? What time are doors tonight?

—It’s fine. Andy told me to take a break. I needed to get out of there anyway. It was freezing. I was just waiting around. And Julien’s being weird.

—Waiting around? You work there, Sloane says. And yeah, I’m sure Jujubean is being weird. Considering you almost had a barback’s baby, smooched Julien, then disappeared with me for the holidays.

—Well when you say it like that, I say.

Sloane nods, takes a slug of her beer.

And now your famous ex is playing a show where he’s working.

—Nick isn’t famous, I say, pulling the words through my teeth with effort. And by the way, how’s Jamie?

Sloane rolls her eyes.

—Don’t project! Or redirect or circumvent or whatever. No no no. Tonight is not about me. And Jamie is fine. I’m on the list for tonight, right? I’m supposed to go to a showcase at the Basement, so it doesn’t really matter, but if it’s as horrible as I’m expecting it to be, I’ll text you. Okay, you can finish that, she says, sliding her beer my way. I gotta run.

—Seriously? Already? You just sat down.

—I told you I couldn’t stay. Give Nick my love. I’m sure you will.

—Fuck off.

—Love you.

And she’s gone, and I’m drinking alone. But is it alone, with all these people around, all these warm bodies so close to one another? Sweat pricks at my temples, a pint glass shatters somewhere behind the bar. The windows are fogged over, so I can’t really tell if it’s still snowing. I finish my beer, I order another round, I never want to leave.

And then:

Wilco comes on. Two A-listers walk in and everybody in the small bar pretends not to notice. And then, Nick texts me: where are we getting a drink before soundcheck?

I’m drinking the same beer I was that night, at the open mic, at the little bar down the street from our house, indifferent students milling around as I sat there with my guitar in my hand, thunder in the distance. I couldn’t find Sloane’s face anywhere, I couldn’t find my capo, but I started to play anyway, because it was better than sitting there silently, surrounded by irritated staring faces. My voice started to crack into the mic:

—Hey, uh, I’m Al, and I guess I’m gonna play some songs tonight. Well, not just me, a few of us are—

Someone shouted a drink order at the bar and I stopped talking, distracted. I cleared my throat and it sounded like a hacking cough when it came through the mic.

—But, like, not too many songs, so, you know, but this one is, uh, I’ll just start I guess.

I looked around wondering, again, where Sloane was.

The manager nodded at me, eyes saying go on, and I strummed, already hearing a slightly out-of-tune note in a chord as I sang, Watch the traffic lights swaying down on Eighth—

But I wasn’t hitting any of the notes I’d written. The melody felt so loose, so distant, I could barely follow it. Panic pressed up on me. Where the hell is Sloane? I thought again; I think that maybe I could do this if I could see her, but then I hear a guy laughing, a guy from a band I recognize, a keyboardist, and he’s looking right at me—right at me—and that’s when it starts to click, that I’m in the wrong key, I can’t hit these notes without the capo, without shifting the melody up or down, no, and the crowd isn’t even a crowd, they aren’t even listening, so it doesn’t even matter. I just do it, without even realizing, I’m launching into lyrics I remember but not ones I wrote, with a melody that isn’t mine, no, not at all, and I don’t know how it happens, like my brain is glitching and I’m mashing something up—I’m watching the clock in a haze…it’s been stuck at three for days and days—and I hear someone say, loudly, Jesus, she can’t even sing, and it sounds like they’re shouting but it’s probably just talking, somebody else saying nobody wants to hear Rob Fucking Thomas and that’s when I realize, I’m playing “3AM”—the chorus and the bridge over and over, like I’m frozen in some awful early-aughts musical loop, a pedal effect I didn’t mean to put on, and I see the keyboardist from the band standing under a soft light, laughing again, looking right at me, not even trying to hide it, and five or six kids walk out, thunder rolling as the door opens and then closes, and then Sloane is in front of me nodding, no, shaking her head, a little grimace on her face, a drink in her hand, and something lodges in my throat, like a bit of dust has gone down the wrong pipe, and I cough into the mic, a slow-motion cacophony of sickness, grasping for water.

Then, for a moment, a horrible quiet. A low laugh from the corner, someone talking into a cell phone at the door, the next songwriter quieting the high E string he’s accidentally plucked. My hand is still trembling, and I’ve lost Sloane again, she’s gone, she’s left, no wait she’s here, but where where where, there are too many fucking faces in this fucking bar.

And then, I lean forward to look for her face again and the neck of my guitar knocks the mic stand over—a scream of feedback, a clatter so loud and gruesome and mortifying I can’t even see straight—and everything goes black black black.