Chapter 3
Chapter Three
ONYX
My drums stay at the Hinky Dinky Bar. I have another set that remains in Benson’s parents’ garage for practice. The ugly, used set. The first true set my mom bought for me.
The drums at the bar are my dream set. The set that I saved up for years for. The set I brag about as if I built them myself.
I have a third set of drums at home in the den. It’s not a full set. They’re compact. They don’t take up as much space. I don’t use them often personally, though. Only when I have a song in my head that won’t let me go, and I need to play it out. They're primarily to give lessons on.
Benson has a single guitar. It’s the fourth he’s had. The one he’s traded up to. So he brings it back and forth every night.
He’s in a relatively good mood tonight. Maybe because Cash wasn’t at the bar. Most nights he’s foul, but when Cash is at the bar, he’s a menace.
It’s rare that he’s in a good mood, though. I wouldn’t say he’s happy. I’m not sure Ben is capable of happiness at this point.
“Did you see the girl at the bar?” he asks, flashing me a smile. “She and her friend were watching us. Giving us eyes.”
I try not to roll my eyes. He’s pretty convinced that all the men who come to Kala are gay, but all the women are secretly straight and blatantly want him. I’m not discounting the number of people on any given night who are bisexual or maybe pansexual. But honestly. No.
Besides, the only women at the bar that I noticed were very clearly together.
“Yeah?” I say. No need to ruffle his feathers. If he wants to imagine girls giving him googly eyes, then whatever. “You get their room numbers?”
“Nah. I don’t have an interest in groupies.”
Outright lie. Benson wants millions of groupies. He has since he was a little kid. He also wants them all to be straight women.
“Probably for the better. Let them keep you in their fantasies.”
Benson laughs. I smile at the sound. It’s genuine. I can’t remember the last time I heard his laughter.
He sighs. We’re standing on the dock waiting for the ferry back to Bane Island. There are only a handful of people milling around the dock with us. Most work at the bars or late-night restaurants on Etsumi. Mrs. Gilbert gives me a friendly smile when I look her way, and I wave.
My wave makes Benson look, and I’m impressed when he actually smiles at Mrs. Gilbert, too. He doesn’t wave or say hi, but a smile is a rare occurrence. Especially a real one.
I’m not sure why he’s in a good mood. It’s not just the absence of Cash at the bar. In reality, he’s not at the bar every night. In fact, I’d say he’s only there one or two times a week, and there are times he doesn’t come in for several weeks at a time.
Cash isn’t the trigger for his nasty mood. It’s just his trigger for his nasty mood becoming hostile and over-the-top gross.
The half dozen of us climb onto the ferry, and Ben leans against the railing as we take off. He sighs. “I can’t wait to get off the islands,” he says quietly. “See the world. There’s so much out there.”
He has some rosy ideas about what the world is like off Kala. He thinks that because he’s straight, none of the ugly will touch him. He’s wrong, of course. Sexuality might be a loud cry for people to show their ugly colors, but it’s far from the only one.
I don’t answer him. When we were kids, I used to dream about the flashy life he painted for us. All we needed was a successful band, and we’d be a hit. We’d have everything.
Reality had me opening my eyes early on, but when I started pointing out the hurdles and challenges before us, Ben would get angry and frustrated. So I keep reality to myself and let Ben have his big dreams.
He talks like it’s a sure thing. It’s going to happen. Someone is going to be in the audience one day and offer us a record deal on the spot for big money. We’d go on tour and never come back to Kala.
I know that’s never going to happen. I’m not leaving Kala.
Really, I’m not sure I actually want to leave Kala.
I love the atmosphere. I love the lifestyle.
I love that there are new people everywhere I look, but I can also go home and know everyone around me.
It’s the perfect combination of anonymity and familiarity.
“I want to go to Scotland first,” Ben says, and I look up at him. The ferry is just pulling away from Anapos. “See the castles. See the places where all the battles took place. See Loch Ness.”
He’s a dreamer. He thinks that the first tour we’d go on would be worldwide. He thinks that we’re going to have all this free time to explore if we go on tour.
“I want to wear a kilt,” he says and flashes me a grin.
“Bro, you can go commando anytime. You don’t need the excuse of being in Scotland for that.”
Benson laughs and turns his attention back to the water. I watch his profile. A smile lingers on his face as he looks out at the endless ocean beyond the islands.
How long after he leaves Kala will he long to come home?
The ferry pulls up to Bane Island, and we follow the couple of people getting off. Benson hikes his guitar over his shoulder, and I follow him to the lockers, where we press our fingers to the biometric scan to open the lockers that hold our phones.
The Isle of Kala is unique. First and foremost, it’s an LGBTQIA+ island resort. We cater to the queer community. This isn’t just a safe space protected from any surrounding negative environments. This is the safest space without any negative surroundings. All the islands are safe.
The second biggest attraction that Kala boasts is that the resort is 100% anonymous. There are no personal electronics. Which means no recording devices of any kind. No pictures. No videos. No audio recordings. No contact with the outside world. Nothing.
Everyone signs an NDA when they come onto the island. Everyone hands over their electronics until they leave.
Those who live here have checkpoints as they leave the residential islands. No electronics beyond the checkpoints. They are locked away in biometric lockers.
I don’t hate it. According to videos all over the internet, humanity is glued to its electronics. Here, there’s freedom. We’re forced to live outside of the digital world. We’re not dependent on the internet. If it suddenly went down, we’d be able to carry on.
I say that, but not really. There is security all over the island. There is no cash; only electronic payments are accessed via programmed bracelets that announce that person’s identity. There are electronics, but they’re tightly regulated and restricted.
“I want to live in a tall condo that overlooks the city and mountains beyond,” Benson says, not for the first time. He doesn’t want to look at the water, which doesn’t surprise me. We’ve been surrounded by water our entire lives.
It’s not like we don’t have mountains too. Mount Pepper is our sleepy, sputtering volcano on Makara. We definitely have a mountain view too.
“What about you? What’re you looking forward to?”
He talks as if it’s a sure thing. Maybe he still thinks it is. “My own place,” I answer, because if I’m looking forward to anything, here or off Kala, it’s living in my own space.
There’s a shortage of housing on Kala. The resort grows, but the space on the two residential islands is already at capacity. It’s a problem. One that has been talked about for as long as I can remember, as the ‘town officials’ consider solutions to our housing problems.
So yeah, if you ask anyone our age—the kids who grew up on the island and are now adults—we all want the same thing. We want our own space. We want to move out of our parents’ houses.
But there’s nowhere to go.
Benson sighs. “Yep. Absolutely. Top of my list.”
I follow Ben to his house, and he lets us in through the back door. It’s past one in the morning, so the house is silent. Everyone is asleep.
Ben stops in the kitchen to fill up his water, and then we head to his bedroom. He has a couch on one wall and his bed on the perpendicular wall. He sets his guitar to the side and then falls onto his bed with a loud yawn.
“Good night tonight,” he says, and I nod as I kick my shoes off.
“Yep. We had a good crowd. Energetic.”
“They liked the new song.” He flashes me a grin. “Who are you singing about? Why do you always keep these girls a secret?”
I roll my eyes. If he weren’t so obsessively straight, he’d realize that there are very few girls available and my songs simply aren’t about any of them. Not that I have a problem with girls. I like girls as much as I like guys. But realistically, there simply aren’t many available women on Kala.
“Just a nameless, faceless girl,” I say. No bother to point out the obvious, most likely reality that I’m not singing about a girl. I’m careful not to use pronouns in my lyrics. It’s usually you and me and us. It’s easier than explaining anything else.
Never mind that if I were to write to my audience, the pronouns should be male. The majority of our audience is gay men, after all.
He snorts. “Whatever, man.”
“You hook up with Tianna again?” I ask.
Tianna is someone we went to school with. She’s had a crush on Ben forever. Ben is not interested in her beyond hooking up, though. Which I find a little amusing.
“Nah. She’s really clingy. I’m a free spirit.”
Right. I roll my eyes and lean back on the couch, grabbing the remote and the game controller. “Wanna play a game?”
Benson grunts in answer, and I realize he’s almost asleep already. His anger can keep him awake for hours, but when he’s in a good mood, he’s asleep almost instantly when we get home at night.
I play for a while. When I begin to yawn, I turn the console off and get up. I generally sleep on the couch. First, I need to piss, though.
Benson is snoring quietly. Shoes still on and feet hanging off the bed. I shake my head and let myself out of the bedroom. He’s a relatively heavy sleeper. I’ve fallen off the couch before, bringing the lamp from the table behind it with me, and he slept right through it.
The bathroom is on the other side of the house. I piss and then wash up for the night. When I come out, I notice Cash’s light is on. It shines through the crack at the bottom of his door. Did he fall asleep with it on?
I pause in front of his door and tap lightly. Loud enough that he’ll hear it if he’s awake, but not so loud that someone else in another room will hear it.
There’s no answer. I tap again, slightly louder this time? “Cash?” I ask quietly.
No answer. Maybe he fell asleep with it on after all. I knock one more time, and when there’s still no answer, I push the door open to turn off the light.
Cash isn’t asleep. He’s sitting on the floor with his headphones on. His eyes rise to mine as soon as I open the door. His long hair is sticking up on his head like a fountain, where he has it secured with a ribbon. I don’t know why, but the sight of him has my heart stuttering for a second.
He pulls his headphones off and asks, “What’s wrong?”
I shake my head. “Nothing. Sorry. I thought you fell asleep with your light on. I was going to turn it off.”
A small smile tilts up one side of his face. “I did forget to turn the big light off and have been too lazy to do so. Did it wake you?”
The amusement flashing in his eyes makes me smile. “I had to use the bathroom.” I nod in his direction. “What’re you listening to?”
“Root Deep.”
“Ohh, you hear their new song?”
“You mean their entire new album? Yes. I’m obsessed. I’ve been listening to ‘Like a Sinner’ on repeat for days.”
“So good,” I agree.
“It makes me very concerned for the rest of the world at the angry tone in this song, but I’m addicted.”
I lean against his door. “Yeah, I know. I think my favorite is Wonder Pug.”
Cash laughs. “Oh my god. Is he actually singing about a dog?”
“Dunno. There are moments I think he is, but then again, that doesn’t fit into the theme of the record, right?”
“No, for real.”
We hold gazes for a minute as silence stretches between us.
I lick my lips and ask, “Up for some company?”
Cash nods slowly. “Okay, but turn off the light on your way in. It’s burning my eyes.”
Snorting, I do just that. With the overhead light off, we’re plunged into a dim room with the only light coming from the lamp beside his bed. It casts a soft yellow glow, but primarily in one corner.
I shut the door behind me and take a seat on the floor with Cash. He hands me one of his earbuds. My eyes haven’t left him, but I still managed to miss when he swapped from the headphones to the earbuds.
With a smile, I lean back against his bed and listen to Root Deep with Cash in silence for a while. Our shoulders touch, but barely. I let my eyes close, and my leg slowly relaxes to rest against his thigh.
“This is the tone I always imagine for my songs,” I say to myself.
“Me too,” Cash says. “This is your vibe. Your songs aren’t angry like…”
Like Benson. That’s what he wants to say. Benson brings the anger to the band.
“I can’t write those kinds of songs,” I admit. “I’ve tried, but they all sound like shit.”
“I doubt they sound like shit.”
“I think, to write an angry song, it needs to come from an angry place. I just don’t harbor that kind of anger.”
“You write love songs.”
I hear the amusement in his tone, and I smile, though I don’t look at him. “I guess they’re love songs.”
“What do you call them if not love songs?”
“I…” My words trail off. “I don’t know. Maybe… sonnets to the love we crave that can never be.”
“That’s a lot of words to say love songs,” Cash says.
I snort and meet his eyes. They’re about you. “I guess so.”
He grins and turns his attention back to the book in his hand. He’s coloring. I let my head fall back and watch as he colors. It doesn’t take me long to become mesmerized by his talent. I had no idea that he was an artist, but I suddenly want to be surrounded by his art.
Maybe I just want to be surrounded by Cash.