Page 4 of Pistol Whipped

“Wanna try?” Dutch asked.

“Yes!” he’d called back, his voice about two octaves higher than Dutch’s, only to try and play it cool a second later: “You know, if that’s cool? Or whatever.”

We did, in fact, climb the swing set. All four of us. Two weeks later, we broke the first swing. Dutch took the seat home as a kind of trophy. What started out as a funny game on the playground evolved into stealing street signs, so that Dallas and Dutch could use them to decorate their bedroom. That swiftly moved on to tagging the playground with our initials, to Cohen stealing a box of violet hair dye because I mentioned wanting to dye my hair purple. Petty crimes, mostly.

We were hooligans back then. And a little bit toxic too. Even as kids, we behaved like the parentless heathens we were. All of us except Cohen, but his parents loved him so much that they mostly turned a blind eye to our wild behaviour. That, and they were busy as hell setting up their business.

Until the day the Bradys and Grams both got sick of bailing us out of trouble. It was my fault. I got caught shoplifting from a bodega, and when the cops found us chowing down on the chips, chocolate bars and a tiny bit drunk from the case of beer I stole, we all got arrested.

For real, that time, rather than being let off with a warning like every time before. Grams and the Bradys had to come bail us out. Oooh, boy, the lecture I got from her that entire bus ride home.

To this day, I am sure Cohen’s dad and Grams conspired to come up with some sort of distraction in the hopes of keeping us out of trouble. The distraction they landed on was music. Grams had my dad’s old guitar tuned and put it in Cohen’s hands. Meanwhile, Mr. Brady gifted us use of the old garden shed in their backyard. Grams and the Bradys sat the four of us down at their kitchen table one night a week after our arrest and said that if we fixed it up ourselves, we could have it as a practice space.

Turns out, music did what nothing else could. We spent a whole summer cleaning out that shed. Come fall, we moved our equipment in. Then we practiced, and practiced, and practiced.

At first, Dallas and Cohen took turns with the guitar. They were both so gifted at music, able to pick up chords and progressions at lightning speed. Dutch used old paint tins and a couple of sticks to mark the beat. At first, I just watched, until Dutch succeeded goading me into singing.

If the boys loved their instruments, it was no different to how I loved each note that flew from my throat. The quiet ones, the crescendo rising into the first chorus. All of it like a cloud that sent me floating away from that small garden shed.

At first, we’d just played the songs we heard on the radio. Badly, I might add. But slowly, using money we got for Christmases and birthdays or, in Dutch’s and Dallas’s case, from their part-time jobs as cleaners at the Rothus Industries warehouse, we saved up and bought more gear. A second-hand bass for Dallas, one drum at a time for Dutch until he had a full kit. Eventually, some amps, a proper mic. The whole damn thing.

Meanwhile, I wrote. I wrote books and books worth of lyrics sitting on Gram’s front porch swing, often while watching the guys wrestle on the grass.

The next summer, without asking, Dutch posted the first video of us online. Dallas cussed him out, Cohen had a panic attack, Dutch and I just thought it was funny. Hilarious even.

For a week afterward, we would check the comments every day and laugh our faces off at all the people saying shit like “No way that’s her real voice.” Or “So obviously fake.”

On the second video, this time posted with our permission, even if Dallas’s was reluctant at best, there were more likes and more comments. Only, the tone was different.

Video by video, we gained followers, likes and comments. But it was the video of us covering ‘Spit Quick’ by Blue and the Graces that changed everything. It blew up. Not just a little. A fucking lot.

Like a few 100,000 views in the first two days. A million by the weekend. Those days, that was a rare fucking feat.

The day Lou came into our lives still goes down in my books as the worst thing that ever happened to us. I remember it like it was yesterday. His big black car, fancy driver and all, pulled up outside Gram’s place and offered to get us “outta’ this dump.”

Cohen, of course, said yes. Where Cohen Brady went, the rest of us followed. We were teenagers, not even out of high school and naive as hell, but so fucking excited. Lou Braun was going to make us, a bunch of rag-tag nobodies, rich and famous.

Only when the day came, and Lou arrived to pick us up, I couldn’t shake the bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. His driver parked this big black town car at the end of Gram’s driveway, and he held the door open for all of us. The boys dove in headfirst, but the closer I got to his car, the more I shook, and the more I shook, the more Lou looked at me like I was a basket of fries he couldn’t wait to devour. The wink he tossed me right before the door closed made me want to run back up to the front porch, back to Grams, and the comfort of a world I understood.

I should’ve listened to my instinct. But teenage hormones make you dumb, and when Cohen stuck his face, all bright green eyes and brown curls, out the car door and called, “Yo, Rainy-girl, get in already!” I was helpless to resist.

Looking back, that was the beginning of the end.

Those four wild children were still there inside of us. All it took was a little bit of money in our hands and the tiniest taste of real fame on our tongues to bring them out. Egged on by Lou-fucking-Braun.

All of which sent me crash-landing right back into The Neck, right back to Grams. But even that didn’t last long. And I can’t last much longer sitting out here in the dark.

My teeth chatter, and my toes, long gone numb, make my steps slow as I meander my way back to Flynn’s. By the time I get there, I have totally convinced myself that Lou’s appearance at the bar, his song choice, all of it was some kind of sick coincidence. One I’ll collapse into bed and forget about.

I let myself in through the back door. Last call was hours ago now, and the bar is quiet. There’s no sign of Resa or Mickey or anyone else, so I don’t bother doing a sweep before climbing the steps up to our apartment. All while praying Trey is already asleep so I don’t have to listen to him give me some sad-sack speech about how he and Resa “weren’t doing anything.” The door creaks only the tiniest bit as I slip through it, and I know just where to step on each of the ancient floorboards to keep them from making a sound.

Needlessly, as it turns out, the light from the bedroom is casting a shadow down the narrow hall and into the apartment’s kitchenette—you can’t really call it a kitchen when it has nothing more than a microwave and a hot plate.

“Rain,” Trey’s flat voice calls, and though I round the corner to follow it, it is with all the wariness in the world. Nothing like fighting with your boyfriend at 4 a.m. to remind you of your rockstar days. The difference between then and now is that, unlike with Cohen, Trey and I almost certainly won’t be having make-me-cum-so-hard-I-see-God makeup sex after whatever fight we’re about to have.

Sitting on the edge of the mattress, staring at me with hard empty eyes, is Trey. It’s his balled hands that draw my notice. He’s never hit me before, but there’s a first time for everything. Unlike his eyes, his hands aren’t empty. Clutched between the fingers of his right hand is a familiar yellowing envelope, the sight of which sends my stomach plummeting through the floor.

My nest egg.