Exile (8 page)

Inside, the claustrophobia increases. The air is stuffy, sour with pot and rank with body odor. As I move down the hall, there’s an acidic twinge of vomit and urine. Dangerheart’s room is on the fourth floor, up concrete stairs made uneven by years of gum deposits. The air is sticky with humanity, and everywhere there is the throbbing muffled pulse of bands, each room a cell in this musical organism, one riff bleeding into another as you pass each door.

I have to use the bathroom, but when I step inside, past the wild splatters of vomit and God-knows-what-else, and push open the only working stall door, I jump back at the sight of a girl making out with a guy.

She looks over her shoulder. “You need to go?” she asks mildly, her lips and eyes painted black.

“No, thanks. I’ll hold it.”

I hurry down the hall and pause outside door 418. I always arrive about halfway through practice, to give the guys time to bond, to get into it and let their guards down, to make their silly boy jokes. I feel like this is especially important since Caleb and I are dating. Arriving with him would be the girlfriend move. The manager isn’t arm candy. The manager checks in and evaluates. Though I do love hearing them play, and watching Caleb sing, I try not to show how much.

I press my ear to the door. It vibrates with each kick-drum beat. They’re crashing through a song called “Artificial Limb.” It’s frenetic and punkish, pretty fun but not quite there yet. I don’t know that it should be part of the set long term, but since they’re just starting out, getting a full set of decent songs is all that matters right now, and “Limb” is definitely decent.

I knock when they’re done and it’s Caleb who lets me in. We lock eyes and I wonder if this will be weird or cool, given our fight before, and whatever was clearly bothering him all day, but he greets me with a relaxed smile, and I do the same. We’re both in pro mode. We allow a brief hug, and I want more, but I hold it back. And yet just before the hug ends, he whispers in my ear: “Sorry about before.”

“Me too.” His hand lingers on my wrist as he pulls away, and it’s enough to get me through to Tina’s.

I drop down on the couch against the far wall. The Hive
has a basement full of discarded furniture and busted amp cabinets, a sort of perpetual recycling system. When it comes to the couches, it’s take at your own risk. This one was once a bright-green-and-purple paisley, but it’s mostly a sort of moss color now, blotchy with stains, cigarette burns, and areas where the velour covering is almost completely worn away. I don’t even want to know what rooms this couch has been in, what’s happened on it, but we sprayed it with Lysol and Febreze and now it seems sanitary enough.

It’s not like the practice space is glamorous anyway. Jon thoughtfully strung some cool little globe lights across the ceiling, but they barely hide the water stains and cracks in the wall, and even if it looked great, it’s a windowless, ventless room, and nothing can stop the general boy smell. Still, there’s something special about it, because it’s the incubator where the music comes to life.

“How’s it going?” I ask.

“Pretty good,” says Caleb. “Just ran through everything. About to go again.”

“Cool.” I open my notebook.

“Uh-oh,” says Jon, “she’s getting out the ledger.”

“Come on,” I say with a smile, “this is what you pay me for.” I flip to my page of notes from last practice. In between scrawling doodles (not because I’m bored: I like to draw to the music, it helps me think), I have a short list of things to point out. I always like to let a practice go by before mentioning any critique to the band, as some things
are just one-time issues, and work themselves out on their own.

They start with “Exit Strategy,” which is upbeat and hyper. It’s a little raw but sounds great.

Next is “Knew You Before.” This is my favorite song so far, and I think it could be a big hit. But as they play it, I hear the main issue that I wrote down last practice. Jon has this pedal board that Caleb nicknamed Mission Control. There are anywhere from five to ten multicolored pedals attached to it at a given practice, cables snaking between them, and he is constantly fidgeting with knobs and buttons. During “Knew You,” he keeps messing with a teal-blue pedal, and his guitar seems to waffle in and out of this time space.

I wait a moment after the song ends, and then say, “So, Jon, what are you going for with that spacey sound?” I’ve learned that Jon is the kind of person who responds to questions. He’s self-critical and will usually intuit what you’re getting at.

“You know,” says Jon with a shrug, already tweaking another dial, “a kind of ethereal wash. Like your arms are out and you’re spinning.”

“Ah.”

He looks up at me. “Was it too much?”

I shrug. “Maybe?” This is a good time to look to Caleb. I don’t mention my critiques to him before I say them, because then it would be like we were ganging up. Also, I try to notice if I’m suggesting something that the band
totally doesn’t agree with, because if I am, it’s best to back off and take a different approach.

“It could maybe be a little more direct,” says Caleb.

“I liked when you had more fuzz on the riff in the verse,” Matt adds.

Jon sighs, but it’s not annoyed, rather a scientist hard at work. “Okay, I’ll dial back the tremolo, kick up the overdrive, see if I can make it a little more urgent.”

“Urgent is the perfect word,” I say.

They go through it again and it’s better, but I make sure to ask Jon, “What did you think of it like that?”

“Sure,” he says, “that could work.” Which is close enough to a yes from someone like Jon.

Next, they play “Chem Lab,” which is poppy and about crushing on your lab partner. Caleb’s lyrics are clever and fun: pipettes and titrates and love. But Matt has given it this really complicated beat: busy with lots of accents, when the song feels like it should just flow.

“Matt,” I say when it’s done, “that’s a really cool beat, but it kinda loses me.”

Matt’s eyes always light up when I say his name, except then he immediately looks away, down into the space between his floor tom and bass drum. “It’s just supposed to feel like a loop,” his says, disappointed.

Matt is tougher than Jon. He takes criticism personally, and he’s really proud of his beats. Drummers can get really focused on the sixteenth notes of a song, rather than the
song as a whole. But I’ve figured out something that usually works with Matt.

“No, it’s really cool, I just wonder if it’s too syncopated. Probably seems obvious to a drummer. But the other day I heard that song ‘Freeze Dried’ by the Bulbs. Do you know that song?”

“Oh, yeah.” There’s at least a spark of interest in his eyes now.

I know that Matt thinks the Bulbs drummer is great. “Well, that song is sorta like this one, style-wise. He’s doing some pretty cool stuff. It seems kinda laid-back. I don’t know . . . might be worth checking it out.” I actually know exactly which part of that tune I’m hoping he picks up on, but I figure that’s about all that Matt can take for the moment.

“Sure, okay.” He’s still looking down at the floor, but he’s nodding. “I’ll check it out.” This probably means he will.

“It’s a cool beat you’re doing, though,” Caleb adds.

“Thanks,” Matt says quietly.

I sit back and my heartbeat calms. It’s always a little nerve-wracking to try to give feedback, and I’m always glad when it’s over. I listen to the rest of the set, doodling, catching nuances, writing down a note or two for next time but definitely not speaking it, and trying not to watch Caleb too much.

I do have one thing on my list for him, but I’ll wait until
after practice to bring it up.

“Why haven’t you showed them ‘On My Sleeve’?” I ask as we walk from his car to Tina’s, each with an arm around the other. We just finished a kiss that caused us to nearly walk into a fire hydrant.

Caleb has been smiling, and as loose as I’ve seen him all day, but mentioning the song suddenly makes him stiffen. “Ah,” he says, “I don’t know if it’s right.”

“Why?” I say. “Because it’s too perfect?” I reach around and squeeze his ribs, but he just flinches a little. He’s got a bag for some reason, this old leather thing that he used for his pedals and cables tonight. I haven’t seen it before.

“It’s not perfect,” he says. He smiles at me, but it’s a lame one, Fret Face in firm control. “I just feel like it’s too personal. I mean, too honest. What fun is that?”

“Um, how about the fact that people are going to totally connect to it? Feel inspired by it?”

“Or laugh at how”—he makes air quotes—“
sensitive
it is.”

“Oh, please.”

He shakes his head. “It definitely does not seem like a Trial by Fire song.”

“Well, I disagree, and I’m going to keep disagreeing until you change your mind.” I let it go for now though.

I wait until we have bowls of frozen yogurt piled with toppings (peanut-butter cups, gummy bears, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream for me; Caleb is chocolate
sprinkles only), and are seated at a table outside to ask: “So, now do I get the
dish
?”

But Caleb is a long way from his last smile. He’s been tightening up by the second. Does he even remember the joke? Instead, he puts that old gig bag up on the table between us.

And as he opens it, he says, “I got a letter from my dad.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

MoonflowerAM
@catherinefornevr 10m
Seriously reconsidering whether I believe in ghosts.

“You what?”

“My mom gave this to me on my birthday,” says Caleb, pointing to the bag “It was Eli’s old gig bag. He left it in Randy’s car the day he died.”

“Your uncle Randy knew Eli?”

“Yeah. Randy and my d—Eli were in a band together earlier in high school. That’s how my mom met Eli. Randy wasn’t part of Allegiance, but they still hung out. My mom said that after I was born, Randy was key in getting Eli to pitch in.”

None of this sounds like it makes Caleb very happy.

He continues: “They’d been hanging out in the
afternoon, and Eli forgot the bag in the car. Randy wanted me to have it.”

“It’s pretty cool,” I say, running a finger over the cracked seams. “Looks like it’s seen some real action.” There are shreds of a sticker on the side, it maybe says Below Zero, but chunks are missing.

Caleb opens the bag. “It had his old pedals and cables in it. One really cool phaser pedal that I might use. But there’s also a pocket in the lining on the side. I don’t think Randy ever even noticed it.” Caleb zips it open.

And pulls out a piece of paper with a ragged edge.

He places the page between us, turning it around so I can read the scratchy handwriting. “This was written by Eli,” says Caleb. He points to the torn edge. “Looks like he ripped it out of a journal. Do you know about that book called
On the Tip of Your Tongue
? It’s the collected journals of Allegiance to North. Mom has it at home. I checked this against Eli’s handwriting. It looks exactly the same. But then the last entry in the book from Eli is dated July eleventh, 1998.”

I look at the page. Top corner, a scrawled date: “July fourteenth.”

“That was the night of the Hollywood Bowl show. On that last tour. The last show they ever played in LA.” Caleb’s face is white. “Read it.”

I hunch over it. I’m wary of reading. My insides are spinning. I don’t like this proximity to the words of a dead man.

I look up. “I’m not sure he was sober when he wrote this.”

“I know.” Caleb nods at the page and I keep reading.

“Whoa. Drown?”

“I know,” Caleb answers quietly.