Chapter 5
5.
Are we going to see the sun this month? He fell off the stage. Literally, just fell right off. Oh, yes, he’s definitely an alcoholic. Would we call that famous? You should really keep that in a case, you know. With a humidifier. The wood’s gonna get all fucked. I think you’d like Escaped Cookie Mountain. The PD they gave us was pitiful. What does a person have to do to get a goddamn cab around here? Those guys were the good precursor to a bunch of worse bands. They’re opening a new spot on Twelfth. Have you been yet? She has solo stuff too, like, three albums. Sold out doesn’t mean shit. If anything, he should be paying me. Do not shit on the bus. I think it was on purpose. Is the Opry open yet? I want a martini.
Songs from Sloane pile up in my inbox. She sends them at all hours of the day and night, along with name ideas for the show. I think I’m the one with insomnia, but she must be up too—scouring sites like Hype Machine and Brooklyn Vegan, clicking away all night on her laptop in her room down the hall. It’s one of the more comforting parts of living with someone else: the simple knowledge that you’re not the only one there.
—I got you a present, she says one afternoon.
Another shadowy day, the sun already low behind the tree line west of the house. Losing light and it’s not even happy hour.
—Just because? I ask.
—Valentine’s, Sloane says.
She’s making tea for us, grabbing two mugs out of a cabinet, tearing open the teabags on the counter. Sober on a Thursday—I feel like a nun. She flicks on the stove, then ducks into her room. From the doorway, she tosses a vinyl at me like it’s a frisbee, shrink-wrap still slick and tight. The National’s High Violet.
—Aw. You didn’t, I say.
—Boxer is better, or honestly even Alligator. But they weren’t in stock.
—I didn’t get you anything, I say. Am I a bad girlfriend?
—You still have two weeks, she says.
The kettle starts its shrill, shrieking soprano. I claw into the plastic and put the record on immediately. I don’t even remember to thank her.
I don’t set out to get a drink with Jessika the following week, it just sort of happens. Sloane’s on a date with Jamie for Valentine’s Day, which isn’t technically until Wednesday, but tonight is Saturday, and everybody who’s got somebody is going out.
At the beer bar down the street on Twelfth, I sit in a corner bar seat and pretend to write, even though I’m actually just sitting there with my notebook open, watching reality TV. The taproom is mostly empty—despite a scattering of fake plastic roses, this is not a romantic place. While my eyes are glued to the stilted advances of several single men and one eligible bachelorette, Jessika slides in next to me. As if we planned it.
—Well well well, she says. She stands back up to give me a hug, and I return it uncertainly, still surprised to think we’re even at the hugging stage. She smells like Sloane.
—Are you stalking me? I ask.
—Absolutely, she says. Am I taking someone’s chair? Are you with someone?
—I’m really not, I say.
She laughs too loudly—always—which makes me laugh too, somehow. She looks pretty, of course—very little makeup, her hair back in a loose bun. A mauve lipstick that’s faded so much I wonder if it’s just the natural color of her lips.
—Are you meeting someone? I ask.
—No no no. One and done. I have a showcase down at Twelfth and Porter in, like, an hour. Jules give you the night off?
A beer arrives that I forgot I’d ordered.
—I swapped a shift with Eddie, I say.
—Oh, Jesus. That fucking guy.
Now I laugh loudly.
—Jules hates him too, she says.
—Yeah, I know.
She nods and lifts her eyebrows, shifting away from me to study the menu scrawled on the chalkboard behind the bar. I can tell my tone was too harsh. She asks the bartender for a couple of samples, then turns back to me.
—How’d you like the mixes? she asks.
The bartender is faster with her, slinging her tasters of various beers, which she sips thoughtfully while I try to find my footing.
—I…
—Johnny, this is—no. Absolutely not. This tastes like pennies. You’re serving this to people? And this one has too much strawberry or something. I don’t want a milkshake. I want a lager.
She pushes two of the samples away and takes a sip of the third.
—I don’t care, she says to me then. I’ll make you one if you want. A mix.
I want to ask if they’re duplicates, if I’d just end up getting the same one she made for Julien, with the Belle and Sebastian song on it.
—Isn’t that just a you-and-Julien thing? I ask as she sips at one of the samples. Sorry—Jules, I add.
She narrows her eyes almost imperceptibly, but seems otherwise undaunted.
—Doesn’t have to be, she says.
The light catches on her face, her eyelashes briefly sparkling, like she’s coated them in glitter.
—I’m good, I say. I can grab them out of my car. I was just, I don’t know. Drunk. Curious.
—Oh, I don’t care, she says.
Of course she doesn’t. It’s a kind of prerequisite of cool—this absolute nonchalance I’ll never have. I pick up a guitar pick someone left on the bar, spin it between my fingertips. She finally orders a pint after trying two more samples, her nose pinched up and judgmental until the last one.
—Picky, I say.
—Not worth drinking something you don’t like, she says.
I nod, taking a sip of my beer, realizing that’s almost exactly what I’m doing.
—Do you play? she asks, nodding at the pick.
—Doesn’t everyone here? I ask.
—I don’t, she says. God, I could never.
The softening in my chest—relief?
—Yeah, but no, I say.
She laughs loudly again; Johnny rolls his eyes at her from down the bar.
—Which means? she asks.
—I do, but not like that. Not out. Not in public. Not really.
—Not really? Ever?
And maybe it’s the single beer on an empty stomach, or maybe it’s the impossible warmth of her flawless fucking smile, or maybe it’s just that I want to talk about it out loud, to tell somebody who isn’t Sloane, because then I say:
—I played out once. In town. It was kind of a mess. I fucked it up pretty royally. So, yeah, not sure I’ll be doing that again.
—Oh yeah? Where at? she asks, completely unfazed.
I tell her the name of the spot.
—I accidentally ended up playing, like, a Matchbox Twenty song.
This makes her laugh suddenly after taking a sip, and she covers her mouth with her hand, little dribbles of beer bursting between her fingers.
—Nothing wrong with that, she says, laughing still, wiping her mouth.
—One of the Denim guys was there, I say. The keyboardist? God, he was laughing. Which, like, maybe he should have been, but fuck.
—Who, Bo? Bo is always laughing. Because Bo is always stoned. I’m sure he wasn’t laughing at you.
—I don’t know about that, I say.
Jess is shaking her head.
—They told me not to come back until I had my own songs to play.
—Those guys are idiots. You should try again somewhere else. It’s basically a rite of passage here to fuck up an open mic. It’s your Behind the Music or whatever. It would be weirder if it went perfectly.
—I don’t think so, I say.
She shrugs.
—Jules told me you write, she says.
—Everybody in this city writes.
—Not really a reason not to do something, she says.
—It wasn’t, I say.
—Hm?
—Julien.
She nods.
A couple sits down at the far corner of the bar, coats swishing onto the backs of chairs, the cold rushing in and then just like that: gone.
I make so many mistakes. There are the big ones, the obvious ones, like Colt, Colt, Colt again. Nick. Nick again. Forgetting to renew my license, to fill up my gas, to get Sloane a Christmas present, to order new checks so I can pay my rent on time. And then there are the small things: the glove in Jessika’s car, forgetting to take my guitar in for a setup or to change my address so that I’m a legal resident of Tennessee. It’s exhausting, exhilarating, endless. Am I learning everything, I wonder, as I finish my beer and pay my tab—the unreadable look on Jessika’s face still on my mind—or am I learning nothing at all?
Julien’s sober month ends on a Thursday. He did at least a full week extra. Instead of getting a drink, he wants to go to the Frist, to see a Warhol exhibit that’s closing soon. I know nothing about visual art, but Sloane tells me I better fucking go, it’s Warhol.
He picks me up—late, which I’m fine with, because it limits the amount of time we’ll have to spend Experiencing the Art. The weather is mild, but I dress the same way I have all winter: fake leather jacket, beanie, a swipe of drugstore mascara.
—Dad was a big Warhol guy, Julien says, as we flash our college IDs for free access to the exhibit. I look over, trying to read his face, searching it for cracks of sadness, grief, but he’s looking the other way, trying to figure out which gallery to enter first.
—A pop art pastor, I say, and then wish I had a string to pull the words back into my mouth. I slide a Xanax under my tongue, let it dissolve into a film of bitterness.
—My parents weren’t into art, I say. Or even music, really.
My voice carries. The museum is quiet, all heels and hushed whispers. Should I be bringing up my living parents when he’s just mentioned his dead dad?
—So how did you end up getting so into music? he asks.
I shrug, and he points us into the exhibit.
—A friend in high school, I say. She introduced me to a lot of bands I probably should have known already, being an emo teen and all. You?
—I was more like the friend in that scenario, Julien says. Though I was also the emo teen.
I laugh and look over at him, but he’s already off checking out the first stretch of paintings. As always, with visual art, I feel like I’m not looking at it hard enough, like I don’t know how to look at it.
—I was a mess in high school, I say.
He nods.
—Yeah, same.
We see some art, see some more art. I try to seem thoughtful and moved, but my mind drifts easily in the quiet, and soon I’m thinking about Julien as a teenager. In the large white hall I can hear the breathing of strangers, their quiet footsteps, the sound of someone whispering to someone else, the click of an iPhone keyboard. An older man clears his throat. A brochure is dropped on the hardwood, then scooped up. We walk in countless circles. For several minutes Julien says nothing at all; I try to mimic his silence, the sincerity with which he takes in the art, but the whole time I want to scream—to fill the void with some kind of sound.
The last room, though, is full of Warhol’s music collaborations, and suddenly I find myself interested. Julien starts talking about the Velvet Underground—another band I think people pretend to like more than they actually do, but Julien really does love them. He starts telling me about something called the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, and I nod and smile.
At 8:42, I remind him that the museum is closing soon. He wants to circle back through one more room, a durational film of the Empire State Building at dusk. The room is empty, dark, and we stand a few feet apart and stare. I shift my weight back and forth on my feet, pressing the dead nerves of my toe against the sole of my shoe. When I look at Julien, he is lost, his face given over to ethereal focus. The reflection of the video catches against his face, and his eyes look like pools of water.
In the car on Broadway, traffic lights swing in the breeze. Julien puts the windows down, turns up the Velvet’s White Light/White Heat.
The city passes by us out the window. The bad bars in Midtown, the college kids in coats too warm for the weather, the hipsters spilling out of songwriting rounds and open mics and taco spots and frozen yogurt shops. We pass a club whose marquee reads We love you, Justin Wilson, and behind us the city flickers under a constant sway of cranes.
—I think about it a lot, I say.
—What?
—Justin Wilson. The whole thing. I don’t know. It’s just—it’s so morbid. It’s just—I know we don’t know if it was on purpose or not. But still. I just can’t imagine getting to that point. Even though I’m always, like, thirty percent depressed.
Julien nods, changes lanes.
—Always? he asks.
—I mean, I’m depressed and nothing bad has ever even happened to me.
The next song starts and Nico’s voice fills the car.
—Bad things happen all the time, Julien says.
The distorted guitar fades to a light fizzle over the speakers.
—Just hard for me to picture getting to that point. I probably wouldn’t do anything besides drink more beer and turn up a Wilco record.
Julien laughs quietly. The light changes, and he shifts into second, third gear.
—That’s good, he says. You’re—that’s good.
He nods, he’s not finished.
—Have—
I start to speak and then stop. A car cuts him off near Nineteenth and he comes to a sudden stop at the intersection.
—Sorry, I say. That’s—never mind. I shouldn’t just go around asking people casually about the range of their, I don’t know, their suicidal ideation.
He laughs again. The breeze rushes in through the windows.
—It’s fine, he says. It’s been a long time. But I’ve been there, I guess you could say.
Pricks of rain start to dot his windshield and he flicks on his wipers. It’s not enough rain though, and the rubber screeches against the glass. Julien shifts in his seat, clears his throat.
—I’m glad you—
—Yeah yeah yeah, he says, waving a hand in the air as his blinker disengages.
Other things I miss, dots I didn’t connect at first: The scars on Julien’s arms. The look in his eye while we sit at the stoplight on Broadway. Like he knew he could tell me this, like he’d been waiting to. An air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, the same color as his eyes. A cut on his index finger as he drums on the steering wheel. I want to pull it to my mouth, put my lips to it, feel the cool of his fingertip against my tongue. Instead I move my hand to the center console, my pinkie trying to reach for him. He glances over at me, then at my hand. His hands stay on the wheel.
When he pulls up to my place, I invite him up. He hesitates, eyes fixed on the stillness of the speedometer. It’s only nine; what does he really have to do? He puts the car in park, sighs a little, then opens the door without saying anything.
Sloane has left a pot of rice remnants soaking in the sink and a freshly packed bowl on the counter, with a note reading smoke me. The heat is on high, too hot for the night. I offer Julien a beer, but he says no, and the noise of popping the cap off my own seems awkwardly loud. We stand in the kitchen and suddenly I don’t know what to do with him.
—Do you want to go sit on the roof? I ask.
—What’s on the roof?
The truth is, nothing, but you can sometimes watch the neighbors across the street who are always shouting at each other, the sweet old couple who drink wine together on the porch on warm nights, the cars that run the stop sign over on Tenth. He sets his keys on the kitchen island and the evening shifts. We go upstairs and climb out, the night wrapping around us like a blanket. We sit close, our knees touching. The moon glows blood orange above us.
—You know, I wrote something new, I say. It’s not finished, but I’m stuck.
—You gonna let me hear it? he asks.
The distant hum of a band rehearsing down the street floats up. Julien’s breath, steady and quiet. The night has finally dipped back into winter, the breeze a little crisp for roof sitting. I crawl back inside and drag out my guitar and my notebook and my beer, which I drink half down. The song is still ragged, unfinished, but he doesn’t say anything as I move through the chords, my voice cracking as he’s sitting too close, my pinkie throbbing, red, not callused enough as I get lost in the playing, closing my eyes, improvising a few couplets, fumbling toward an ending I haven’t really written, the last cadence of chords making it sound like a CD that skips, clunky and pedestrian. But when I finish: a small pinch of relief, like someone has let the air out between my ribs.
—I haven’t figured out that second verse, I say.
—What if…
He holds out his hands for the guitar and I pass it to him. He plays my chords, then continues with something else, humming quietly under his breath.
—I don’t know, he says. Never mind.
—No, I like it, I say.
Eyes closed, melody buzzing, the night cold and quiet around us. He shrugs.
—It’s your song, he says.
—Not anymore, I say.
I look up to his face again, my nose so close to his chin, it doesn’t seem we can get any closer without touching. His skin is the color of sand; I want to press my tongue to it. He presses his lips softly to the top of my own, runs a hand up my thigh.
—I don’t want to be your rebound, I say.
He breathes out slowly, his exhale muffled by the sound of a car rolling through a stop sign below.
—Well, I don’t want to be yours, he says.