2. Chapter 2
Hate This Song
Rain
The next night is the same. I’m back behind the bar.
Still watching Trey and Resa flirt. The only difference is, it’s Friday.
The last Friday of the month, which means people’s unemployment insurance will have dropped this morning.
Might not mean much to you, but here in The Neck, that is cause for celebration.
I stop to chat with Leelee, one of the sex workers who operates between the bar and the small bodega where Trey sent me to get more lemons. They mention they’ve already had more johns than normal. Their pimp stands at a distance, looking pretty fucking pleased as he counts bills.
There are other signs too. During my short walk, I passed more than a few folks crashed out against doorways or who had already pissed themselves in the alleys between the pawn and betting shops.
Those two go hand-in-hand, after all. There will be more badly cut fentanyl on the streets of The Neck tonight than usual.
There are also rumours of a new drug out there, one that’s a poor man’s cocaine and will get you flying high.
Unlike up in The Head, where it’s all white powders and high-end pharmaceuticals.
Down here, it’s dirty drugs and dirtier streets.
It also means the bar will be packed tonight.
Even more than it normally is on a Friday.
Meaning better tips than usual too. There’s also no open mic, so I’m doubly grateful because there’s no chance I’ll have to listen to some hiccupping stranger butcher my lyrics or worse, Cohen’s music while I stand behind the bar cringing the entire time.
Add that to the list of indignities that go along with being a washed-up former rockstar.
Your own music will haunt you. The day we found out our first single, ‘Gut Punch’, went platinum, the four of us were fucking ecstatic.
We celebrated. Hard. Then our first album, Whoever You Want Us to Be, came out and it did well too.
And we celebrated again. Even harder. Life was all lipsticks and cherries.
Except now, all these years later, the success of that song, and that whole album, means that it’s impossible to escape.
Our songs end up on radio station countdowns like ‘Top Ten Punk Songs of the Last Decade’ or ‘Best Canadian Band of the 2000s’, or worse, old pictures of you end up splashed on your TV screen, part of shows with horrible names like ‘Behind the Notes’ or ‘When We Were Young’ that remind you, just in case you fucking forgot, that not only did you get old, you’re also not famous anymore, and worst of all, your band was enough of a train wreck by the end to make it onto some fucking list.
One of the nicest things Trey ever did for me was erase all The Preaching Pistols songs from the pay-to-play jukebox in the corner of the bar.
The one that supplies the music for Flynn’s during the week.
It’s probably the only reason we’re still together.
That, and I don’t have the money to move out. Yet.
My mind flickers back to my little mattress nest egg, and I mentally count the bills in there.
It’s definitely not a fortune, but with some luck and another couple of months, I should have enough for a deposit on a cheap one-bedroom.
That’s all the motivation I need to plaster a smile on my face and tug my tank top down so what little cleavage I have is exposed, as I switch on the neon open sign hanging from the door.
A couple of hours later, and as predicted, Flynn’s is heaving. Trey and our weekend bouncer, Mickey, have already had to break up a few fights, including one girl-fight that had the rest of the bar cheering.
Our weekend DJ, which is way too nice a description for Scotty Mac, has been spinning familiar tracks that have the crowd moving.
My hands are coated in whiskey, vodka, and over-poured pints.
Some, my fault, others the result of being spilled on by the people we are definitely over-serving.
But I’m not about to stop because for once, the tips are flowing.
Time passes quickly. Resa and I sling drinks as fast as we can.
The mood in the bar twists the later it gets and what started as a party atmosphere quickly shifts into something darker.
Sure, Scotty’s still got tunes pumping, people are still dancing and buying drinks, but in one of the corner booths, a girl is passed out, and her boyfriend doesn’t seem to care enough to stop fucking her.
The punters that come to the bar now have glassy eyes or pupils that are way too big given how dark the room is.
Still, last call isn’t for another couple of hours.
There’s a momentary lull when Resa taps me on the shoulder and says, “Hey babe, you okay if I take my break?”
I don’t even manage an answer before I see her wink at Trey, throw her towel down on the bar and vanish.
“Three, two, one…” The last number is barely out of my mouth when Trey casts a glance at the door, then at me, and follows her out. Which is just fine. If Trey and Resa want to head out back and fuck, great. More tips for me.
There are too many people crowding the bar to worry about my loser boyfriend or the fact that he is so openly cheating on me. Seconds after they’re gone, there’s already a lineup of people waiting to order.
First up is a man who doesn’t seem quite as drunk as the rest of the folks crowding against the counter. I ask for his order, but all I get is a sad attempt at flirting.
“Nice ink, babe.”
It’s not. The patchwork tattoos that cover my arms are old, starting to fade and were mostly done at the cheapest parlour in The Neck.
“You like mine?” He gestures to his face where he’s got a small piece on each cheek. I don’t look close enough to register what they are because the guy starts blowing kisses at me.
Ignoring the urge to hurl, I tell him to order or move along.
He might have mumbled something like, “Bitch,” but he orders all the same.
I feel a tiny ping of guilt when he asks for Crown Royal on the rocks, even going a step further to drop cash on the bar before I give him the total.
It’s rare we get someone in here willing to splurge on the good stuff, so our only bottle is literally on the top shelf behind me.
If Trey wasn’t too busy fucking Resa, I’d ask him to grab it for me. At five foot two inches, I’m nowhere close to tall enough to get it on my own. With no one around, though, I have no choice but to climb my ass up onto the back of the bar.
The hoots and leers from the crowd are expected, considering the black skinny jeans I’m wearing have big rips just below my ass, and one glance of skin is enough to set these creeps off. My fingers wrap around the bottle, and I’m about to clamber down when I hear it.
The G Major. The one, five, six, four chord progression and then, of all things, Dutch’s deep baritone cursing, “Fucking love,” before punching into the song with a sharp hit to the snare drum.
No one but the four of us, and I guess our producer and sound engineer, could possibly know that those words weren’t some cute commentary on the song about to play.
Dutch swore because Cohen and I couldn’t stop pawing at each other like animals.
We were both drunk. Drunker than we should have been mid-morning on a Tuesday.
Or maybe it was a Saturday. Back then our days bled together.
Either way, Dutch was pissed off and only marginally more sober.
Yet somehow, amidst that fucking mess, A Thousand Hearts was still recorded, and we managed to make it sound damn good too. Good enough that even now, all these years later, the powerful drum beat and lyrics claw every awful, beautiful memory out of me.
This fucking song. It brings them all back, and I’m ready to rip Scotty’s head off before the beat even drops. I hate this song. I hate my voice. I hate every word of the lyrics and every fucking note.
The only thing that soothes my disgust is the knowledge that as much as I hate this song, Cohen, Dutch and Dax have to hear it too.
I hope wherever they are in the world, it’s playing on an endless loop.
I hope the lyrics get shoved down their throat at every single chance.
I hope they listen to people sing along and my words burn a hole through their fucking heads.
Cohen’s strained voice joins mine for the chorus:
“Even if I had a thousand hearts,
Every one would beat for you
If I had a thousand hearts
All of them would break in two,”
I know what’s coming next, the lines we wrote together, when we were so in love that we thought nothing and no one would ever tear us apart. We were just idiot kids. Who had no idea how fucking easy it was for this world to rip you to shreds.
“Because you are the best of me
Even when you make me cry
When you make me scream
You are the best of me
And if I lost you now
It’d be my last heartbeat.”
I am about to scream. Or cry, which is worse. All drink orders forgotten, I whip the towel off my shoulder, and I’m halfway to the dance floor, ready to storm the DJ booth and give Scotty shit for playing that goddamn song, when the crowd before me parts.
There, by the side door, the one used exclusively by Scotty for loading and unloading his equipment, is Lou Braun.
Lou-goddamn-Braun.
He’s chatting with Scotty, who points right at me. Lou looks up. The moment he sees me, that familiar sly grin, the one that makes me feel like someone’s poured grease over my skin, creeps onto his face. And he winks. Just like all those years ago, he winks.
Sometimes life’s cruelty slaps you across the face; other times, it slips in through a side door when you aren’t looking and you least expect it. Leaving you no choice but to take a deep breath and face it. Or you can run.
I choose to run.