Lo Fi

Chapter 3

3.

Songs that should be listened to only in the winter:

“River” (Joni Mitchell—perhaps obvious, but deserves mention)

“Snow Day” (Matt Pond PA)

“The Latter Days” (Frontier Ruckus)

“We Looked like Giants” (Death Cab for Cutie—yes, again. Ideally should be listened to at night during the winter.)

“Woods” (Bon Iver)

“If It’s the Beaches” (the Avett Brothers—counterintuitive, I understand)

“Cold Cold Ground” (Tom Waits)

“I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight” (Richard and Linda Thompson)

Drizzly blue daylight, my chest pounding in the cold of the second space. A memory of Nick, now several weeks old, hazy. Regret. New Year’s Day, and everybody’s somewhere doing nothing. A memory of Julien then, soft lips on mine, my palm pressing into porch as he kissed me. The show tonight is a local thing, three up-and-comers I haven’t heard of, but it should be pretty quiet. Andy says he doesn’t really need me at the door. We aren’t expecting much of a crowd.

The whiskey from last night—and the gin and the beer and the cigarettes—gnaw at the back of my throat like a rancid echo. I’m all out of Colt’s benzos. Andy’s guitar is cold to the touch, slightly out of tune. The song in my head is finally my own, but it hasn’t convinced me, not yet. The hook settled in quickly, clear and confident—cocky, even, about as egotistical as a melody could be. But I’m still mapping my way through the verses. Every time I think I’ve got something, it disappears.

Told me that I’d fallen in love with everybody who came through

I pretended it was nothing, said at least I didn’t fall in love with you

The space heater kicks off and the A minor of the last lick lingers, quiet reverb off the empty walls. Two partial songs now, with weeks of no full ones. Last night, at home after a party Sloane had snuck us into, I sat in the living room trying to smash the songs together, forcing the fragmented melodies into a drunken mess. It was sonic carnage.

Colt’s horizontal in the office when I get downstairs, a cowboy hat over his face. The room reeks of potent weed, and he doesn’t see me slide Andy’s guitar back under the coffee table, a swish of nylon against the hardwood.

—What’d you do last night? I ask.

—Drugs, he says.

Without even removing his hat, he points with a sad finger toward Andy’s desk. The remaining half of an expertly rolled joint is perched on a copy of Anna Karenina.

—Is Julien here?

Now Colt looks up.

—The two of you are always asking where the other one is, he says.

—No we’re not.

—No, he’s not here, sorry babe. It’s just me. Don’t kill the messenger. Just smoke that, and then I’m getting us a beer. It’s the only way through to the other side. What do you like? Rolling Rock, right?

—Yuengling, I say.

—You guys know Tolstoy hated music? Eddie says, appearing in the doorway.

—Jesus, Colt says. When did you get here?

Eddie’s hair is shorter, but his facial hair has taken over the bottom half of his face; he’s shaved it into a Fu Manchu and somehow it’s grown in even redder than before.

—I’ve been here. Upstairs.

—Where upstairs? I ask.

Picturing Eddie in the second space is like finding out he’s had sex in my bed. Colt dips out to the bar for our beers.

—Getting a space heater from the closet, Eddie says dumbly, running a hand over his mustache and grinning. Why? What’s up there?

—Nothing, I say.

—What the fuck did you do to your face? Colt asks as he reappears in the doorway.

It’s hard to tell what triggers the rush of relief in my chest—Colt appearing with my beer and mocking Eddie, or Eddie not knowing about the other space yet. A text from Sloane pops up on my phone: talking to Billy (officially officially) about our future slot tonight. Get ready DJ queen. I roll my eyes and slide the phone back into my pocket.

—You good to be solo tonight? Andy asks me from the doorway. Surprised to see all of you here.

He’s got a generic-looking to-go coffee in his hand and his fleece hangs loosely on his frame. He looks cold; for that matter, we all do. All winter, everyone in their thrift-store T-shirts, threadbare beanies, flannels, thin jackets. Wondering why we’re always so cold when we do nothing at all to keep ourselves warm.

—Yeah, sure. Julien’s not coming?

—She’s obsessed, Colt says.

—Jealous, Eddie says, and Colt lifts a middle finger toward him.

I knew it would be a slow night, but for some reason I still expected him. He went to Minnesota over the holidays and I haven’t seen him in almost two weeks. Just two shifts together since Nick’s show. Twice, over the holidays at Izzy’s, I almost got drunk enough to call him, to text him that I was thinking of him, but then I woke up with all the lights on in Izzy’s guest room, my phone dead in my hand, Julien’s number pulled up but not called.

—No guest list tonight, he says. I’d be surprised if we do more than sixty or seventy. Eddie, you know you’re not getting paid to be here tonight, right?

—Capitalism, man, Eddie says.

Andy looks at him with a mix of confusion, irritation—regret.

Behind the bar, Colt leans over, shaking ice loose from the machine, stacking cups, restocking bottles. As I’m heading over to the greenroom, Andy calls me back to the office. The last band is finishing up a sleepy sound check and looped guitar slips into the room. Danny is half-dead in the sound booth. Our whole team looks functionally ill today.

—You can borrow it, you know, Andy says.

—Shit. I’m sorry, I say, turning to him. I mean. I have my own at home. It’s just—yours is nice.

—I thought you didn’t play, he says.

—I have an old Gibson that was my aunt’s. But it’s too big for me. The action’s too high. I don’t know. I can’t write much on it. Though that’s probably not the guitar’s fault.

—What are you writing?

—Nothing finished, I say.

—Take it home sometime, he says. If you want. Or you can just keep playing it upstairs. Not a problem. Just give me credit, he says. You know, if you write a number one single on it.

I roll my eyes. Through the doorway, Colt’s waving a beer at me over Andy’s head.

—I’m gonna go restock the greenroom, I say.

The night is slow, listless. I should have stayed home, but Sloane is at Jamie’s and I would have hated the silence seeping through the floorboards, into the walls. Eddie’s sitting at the bar drinking a Mich Ultra with Colt, talking animatedly with his hands while Colt stares numbly into space. Without Julien here, I pass the time just staring at my phone, flipping through a copy of the Scene. There’s a review of the Flirtation Device show, with a byline I don’t recognize. I start to text Nick a picture of it but then stop. He’s back to his life that doesn’t involve me. Our nights are just miniature detours from his actual tours. Instead—

I text Julien: What are you doing? Doors are dead.

He doesn’t respond.

I text Sloane back about the radio show: only if we get a primetime slot.

She responds immediately: well obviously.

Colt comes down and asks me for a light. I pass mine to him and he takes the lighter but doesn’t step outside.

—You know you’re free to do whatever you want, he says, the cigarette loose between his lips like he’s posing for a photo.

—I do know that, I say, turning the page of the alt weekly, not looking up.

—Don’t get me wrong, I like our…our evenings together. But if you’re—

I glance up. He looks like he’s cut his hair even shorter in recent weeks, which barely seems possible.

—I got it, I say.

He pauses and then looks at me closely, taking the cigarette out of his mouth. He says: I like that you don’t even know you’re hot.

—Excuse me?

—Or maybe you actually do, and that’s the whole ruse. It’s sexy, though. Even if the humble thing is bullshit.

—Someone here has to be humble, I say, and Colt laughs.

I glance at his feet—a lazy pair of New Balance sneakers—planted firmly into the floor.

—Go text your emo prince, he says.

I roll my eyes.

—Go smoke your cigarette, asshole.

Upstairs, the first band has gone on, and quiet fuzzy guitars echo down the stairs. There’s a piece in the weekly on a local school board member, a bit about some flood recovery that’s still in progress. On my phone, Julien still hasn’t responded. Nick’s just played a show in Philly. Sloane’s back home; she texts to ask if she should save me some pizza. I pull up the photo I saw of Julien from over Thanksgiving with the blond girl. I zoom in on his face, then slide my phone back in my pocket as someone shoves an ID in my face.

A couple of people come through the door over the next half hour, a parade of cold January frowns. A girl I recognize from the Belcourt comes through, but she doesn’t seem to know me. Two guys then, eyes bloodshot. Danny’s girlfriend, natural deodorant and dreadlocks. A redhead who does lights for the National, off tour for the winter. A middle-aged man who used to be in a “famous” Christian band—I recognize his name when he flashes his ID. And then, oddly—Esther Wainwright.

At first I’m not sure it’s her. Dark hair with a prominent gray streak. But her name is fresh on my mind, the recent news about Justin Wilson. It’s so perfectly Nashville, to be suddenly face-to-face with someone you were just thinking about. For the first time all night, I’m fully aware of my body, the cold, the physicality of being a person walking through the world. A person sitting on a stool, wearing a fake leather jacket.

—Esther, right? I say, remembering Andy’s distant advice—never guess—and as usual ignoring it.

—Hi, yeah, that’s me. Do we…know each other?

—No, no. I’m Al, though. I’ve been following along with the—keeping up.

Should I apologize? The way I did to Julien, after my comments about his dad? Suddenly I wish he were here. Somehow I’m sure he’d help me through this conversation.

—I’m glad he’s okay, I say, then start to doubt myself. Or well, I mean, I don’t know. I’m glad—

—Thank you, Esther says. Me too.

She reaches across the ticket stand to me, her hand impossibly soft.

—Esther, she says. Which you already know.

—Sorry. I feel like a stalker.

—No. I didn’t mean it like that. You sure we haven’t met? she asks now.

She adjusts a simple gold necklace around her neck, pale skin dotted with rosacea, silver chipped nails pressed against her chest.

—Maybe? I say. I’m around a lot.

—Were you at the house show over on Horton? Back in—maybe just before Halloween? I recognize this jacket, she says, pinching at the shoulder of my neon windbreaker.

—I was.

—Maybe that was it. I had a writing gig over near there, she says. And then she sighs and says: Nashville.

—Nashville, I agree.

Shots of Four Roses, a Miller High Life and then another. Esther floating in the back, like a ghost. Another shot, the room warm, the music on a reverb-saturated loop. A girl onstage, sing-screaming about getting sober while I drift blissfully away from any such condition. Danny suddenly in charge of load-out, of closing, of everything. Andy off to the emergency room, his daughter’s wrist broken in a basketball game. Colt: red cheeks, puffy eyes, buzzed head, too many rings on his hands. Why would one man need so many rings? Eyeing myself in the bathroom, looking for whoever it is that Colt has seen. Maybe he is right—something about the way the sheen of sadness radiates through the alcohol, a milky lightness left in its wake. The humility, though, he was wrong about that—or maybe I’m just drunk. No dinner. The night taking on the shape of a walking dream, January blues, I wish I had a river snow day snow day I could skate away skate away skate away from you—

Two a.m. A pizza place off Music Row that’s been closed for hours, but we’re still here: Colt, the local bands from tonight, a street artist who’s working on a mural downtown somewhere, Sloane, two other girls from the radio station. Sloane’s head is thrown back, her teeth white, her neck long. Always making friends with the women at tables, pulling them in as I push them away. Bottles of thick, hot wine. Broccoli rabe and sausage, cheese that stretches into the night. The room spinny. Colt has solved the hangover problem because now I’m fucking wasted. His hand on my leg, tracing the thick denim at the crotch of my jeans. I want to run my fingers along the outline of his dick. Wet heat—it could be this easy.

No way they’ll sell that place out. I swear to god, it was him, I saw him. He was wearing suspenders! We have a hockey team? He has almost no rhythm. Did it come out on vinyl? Apartment three eleven, come on over. Close me out while you’re up there. You know that song is about John Mayer, right? Michigan, I think. Yeah, they’re getting some buzz. Flotation something. Can someone pass the water down here? Well, fuck him then. Flotation Divorce? No that’s not it.

Julien, walking around the corner off Edgehill—I can see him coming from the patio of the restaurant. No, wait, can’t be. Julien’s at home, asleep. Peaceful under his posters of the Boss. The lights are low and my inhibitions are lower, the whole scene is taking place underwater, sound warping in quiet echoes, people becoming fuzzy, slippery versions of themselves. Press my palms into the stiff wooden bench, shift my leg from under Colt’s hand. The room still tilts. Is it too warm in here? A hand on my shoulder.

—Hi.

—Hey. Hi.

I have to pull the words out of my mouth like candy stuck to my teeth.

Julien.

—Where have you been? I ask. You didn’t text me back.

—Home, he says.

—Do you want some wine? I need some water.

—Ah, the Emo Prince, Colt says. She was asking about you all night.

—Ignore him, I say. He’s drunk.

—He is?

Sarcastic. I try to sit up straighter.

—What are you doing here? I ask.

—Mallory needed a ride, he says, nodding to a girl down the table that I don’t recognize.

—Mallory, I repeat, like I’m chewing the word.

The patience in his face flickers on and then off and then disappears completely.

—My friend Mallory, he says. Don’t do that.

He shakes his head, looks around the restaurant and then down at his hands.

—What? Don’t do what?

—Don’t, he says. You know.

—I’m sorry, I say. Are you sober?

—I am.

—Incredible, I say. Valiant. Majestic.

My mouth is full of marbles and bullshit.

—Hunter, Colt says, I’m gonna close us out. You good? Want a shot of Fernet for the road?

He puts a hand at the base of my neck, somehow hot and cold at the same time.

—Of what? No, it doesn’t matter. I’m good. I’m good.

Colt turns away; Julien looks around the space, briefly lost.

—We’re not together, I say stupidly, and he looks back at me, his eyes watery, tired.

—Neither are we, he says.