25. Zak
At the start of a concert, people would scream for anything.
Zak had been to many shows where everyone applauded prematurely for the roadies bringing out microphones… before trailing off when they saw the bold white letters, STAFF, printed on the backs of their T-shirts. She’d heard people clap and whistle as the lighting team tested equipment to see if the timing lined up, a gentle fade taking place in time with a guitar intro that belonged to the pre-show playlist.
She had even been to one show where a drunken fan climbed on stage, played the air guitar over his exposed beer gut, and chugged the rest of his Corona as security promptly hauled him away during his standing ovation.
On May 1st, 1998, at the Sedgwick Center in downtown Pittsburgh, eight thousand people screamed for Saint of Spades when Zak and Chase walked on stage together without fanfare. That excitement didn’t die down until they sat on the stools positioned at center stage, side-by-side and only a few feet apart.
Which was when it became apparent to everyone watching that the rest of the band would not be joining them.
“So…”
Zak had offered to make the announcement, but she didn’t anticipate the uproar her voice would instigate. Even though she was trying to deliver news that could be very, very poorly received, she had to smile at the energy from the crowd as she waited for the noise to calm.
“So, here’s the thing, Pittsburgh. There’s been an emergency, and not everyone in our band could be here with you tonight. We’re going to have to refund you for your tickets.”
Before the murmurs bled too far through the audience, she continued. “But, you came here to see us play, and we came here to show you a good time. So, if it’s alright with you all… for our half of the show, my friend Chase and I want to do a little something special for you tonight.”
Sparks of suspense lit up the stadium as she lifted her acoustic guitar off its stand. Her ring finger brushed the Z.K. behind the twelfth fret. Newfound wisdom now replacing the original explanation she’d constructed like a pillar of her identity.
“We’re going to go old school,” she said, demoing the riff to “Kerosene” on acoustic.
Burning white lights illuminated the crowd, some already cheering. A handful of empty seats stood out as people continued to trickle in, but from where she sat, it didn’t look like anyone was leaving.
Whether they stayed out of curiosity or excitement, she hoped, by the end of the first song, they would remain out of enjoyment.
Zak briefly wondered who was watching from backstage—if her father and Alex and Izzy stood by. Talking about how she and Chase were crazy for making the last-minute decision to convert their entire setlist to an acoustic duet.
“That’s enough from me.” She turned to Chase and tried to remember the way she looked at him before she was in love with him. But that seemed such a distant blip in history, she couldn’t recall the expression on her face back then. Couldn’t summon it to cover up the smile she gave him. “You came to hear this guy’s voice, not mine.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Parker.”
Her heart skidded over the next few beats at the sound of his voice filling the speakers, filling the amphitheater, but directed at her in that just-for-her tone.
He gazed at her as if there weren’t thousands of people observing them on stage and over a jumbotron. His private smile took over, the dimple on his cheek she loved pressing her lips to. The eyes he gave her when he told her he loved her, when he told her he wanted her, when he told her there was only her.
He was fuckingwith her.
Suddenly, she was sixteen again. Trying to find any excuse she could latch onto to distance herself before curiosity took over, willing her to find out whether he kissed with those lips as well as he fired back sweet responses to her bitter words.
Worse than curiosity was knowing.
The only thing better than his smile was feeling it against hers. The only thing better than his nickname for her echoing off the walls of the stadium was his nickname for her in private. Whispered against her skin. The only thing better than witnessing his competitive spirit was experiencing it.
How much could the cameras capture? Would the crowd of strangers be able to see through her as easily as her friends did when she looked back at him?
Did they catch the way she bit her lip to keep from grinning too wide as she clipped back, “I’m not selling myself short, I’m trying to make you look good.”
Laughter rumbled through the crowd, overpowered by the sound of her acoustic as she restarted the intro again, looping it until Chase was ready.
She wondered if he was thinking about the first days they’d spent practicing. Him, shy and stressed. Her, reveling in making him squirm with all her crazy asks. If this moment made him remember the first time they played on a stage, just the two of them. Where the crowd was smaller and he had no idea how to speak into the microphone.
“Well, I don’t have to try to make you look good, huh?” he tossed out after the first song ended. “She’s amazing isn’t she, people? Why don’t you tell them about the next one, Zak.”
Tonight, the stage must have been their living room. Because Chase was getting way too cozy with it, and she was enjoying it too much to put a stop to it.
She wasn’t the only one.
The cheering metamorphosed into demanding. And who was she to say no? They were the reason she was here.
She fingerpicked the intro to “Dashboard Dreams” on her guitar.
Songs were portals back to the first time Zak had written them, heard them, or finally understood what they meant. That was one of her favorite things about making music. It was a scrapbook in sound. A mental photo album.
“I was young when I left home,” she said, envisioning the first night she slept in her car. She’d covered the windows in blankets and huddled in the backseat, sweat misting her brow as she played her favorite albums at low volume on her Walkman. “And I had no clue what I was doing, so I wrote this song to try and figure it out. And it starts like this…”
“Have I met you before?
Thought I’d remember a face like yours.
A print in indigo leather
A mask donned in nameless wars
I know places I’ve never been
But I can’t remember
Is that light from the street or the sun?
Graveyard candle for me and the moths
You don’t have to search to find home
I lied through my teeth to be alone
And dreams are brittle, fickle things
Better to be set in your ways
Close your eyes, don’t lose yourself in the haze
Mile markers are signs, but not the ones you need
And no one falls in love with a fuck
In the backseat”
She waited all night to pay Chase back for springing the mic on her. Not that the wait, or the talking, was unpleasant when it was storytelling on stage. They played for thousands as if they were performing vulgar folk songs in front of a campfire.
Chase had heard the stories behind most of her songs. He liked to flip through her notebooks and ask her about everything from the full-length pieces to the fragmented notes she wrote in the margins.
There was one song, however, that he knew intimately.
“Why don’t you tell them about this one?” she prompted before Chase could say a word.
He looked down at their setlist. Perhaps in disbelief that she would test him like this on stage, surrounded by people. Then he looked back at her.
Payback.
“There’s a woman I fell in love with.”
Her heart, in turn, stopped.
“Have you ever fallen so hard for someone that you can’t think of anything else? Nothing else matters. When you’re with them, the rest of the world fades away. When you think of them, you can’t breathe. And you want them so bad, you feel like they’re with you at night.”
Whistles came in firecracker bursts throughout the room.
“I think of those nights when I think of this song,” he said. “I think about all those times I imagined her in the dark. And it felt dirty and wrong, but it also felt incredible. It felt like seeing the world in color for the very first time.”
Zak’s skin burned as he began to sing.
It would always be theirs. It would always be her secret to him, and now, his confession to her. She knew everyone was imagining his love for Izzy as they heard him ramble, raw and candid, into the microphone.
But voices were easy. Could anyone tell that she poured her love for him into the way she played? Into the nonverbal cues and smiles and whispers of touches they had built together from the beginning of Chase’s career as a singer—before he knew he had one?
She loved him like she loved music. The way he, too, could bring her back to a time, a place, a feeling, with one look. The way he could calm her when she needed assurance and fuel her with energy when she needed to feel her rage burn out the wick. The way she still thought of him late at night, even when his arms were around her.
He was history, present, and future. He was the kid she had nothing in common with, the man she had healed with, and the surest picture every time she thought of tomorrow.
Even when today felt very much like a glimpse back to a distant yesterday.
“Before we play you this last one—” Chase was cut off by all the boos creeping through the stands.
Zak’s heart could have pounded a hole through her chest and fallen right out. Right onto the stage.
She’d thought they would hate it. No one came to a rock concert expecting a calm, unplugged experience. But asses had stayed in their seats, and people were screaming for an encore before the conclusion of the final song.
“Damn, Pittsburgh. Alright.” Chase chuckled. “Before this last one, I want to take a minute to dedicate tonight to the guy who helped start this band.”
The whole concert had been an exercise in unrehearsed mayhem. That dedication was no exception.
Zak watched him, on the verge of those tears she’d been holding back all day, as he continued.
“None of you met Link. Hell, I never met Link. But Saint of Spades wouldn’t exist without him, so for that, I owe him my life.” He rested a hand on Zak’s shoulder, his thumb lightly rubbing her collarbone before he pulled away.
“Today, he would’ve turned twenty-seven. We all wish he had that chance. But he lives on in this album, in these songs. I guess all I wanted to say is: Happy Birthday, Link, and be careful out there, everybody. Life really sucks sometimes, and when you can’t do anything else about it—turn to music. I hope music can help get you through it.”