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A few blocks later he said, “So, you recognized me?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“That means, I could, maybe— There’s this song I’ve been working on, and one part is just wrong, but I’ve been fiddling with it so long I can’t hear it anymore. Maybe you could listen, tell me what you think?”
He bit at his thumbnail and threw a sideways glance up at me, that frosty blue bright even in the darkness.
“Okay.”
It was out of my mouth before my brain even caught up, and I stood, frozen, as if a thunderclap might follow, and I’d be dragged back down to hell.
“Great!” His smile was unexpectedly dazzling, all white teeth and crinkling eyes. “Okay, so—do you mind?”
He reached for my guitar case.
“What, here?”
He looked around like he hadn’t noticed where we were.
“No one will care.”
I mentally shook my head at him, wondering who the hell was letting a major rock star plunk down on a curb on Flatbush in the middle of the night. Right, I supposed that would be me. I sat next to him and handed over my guitar. My left knee pressed against his right, a point of warmth in the chilly night.
“So, it’s—” He started to play, singing wordlessly, his right foot tapping out the percussion part he must’ve heard in his head. He hummed what was clearly the chorus. “Then, here I have it go back to—” He repeated the verse, the chorus, then went into a bridge that inverted it, then back to the chorus. It was a good melody, a strong structure. It could be on the radio as it was. But he was right that there was a little something missing. A flat place where there should be a wrinkle.
“It needs a little…twist,” he said.
“Do you have lyrics?”
“Yeah, but…I…they’re not done.” He bit his nail.
“Title?”
“?‘Man of the Crowd.’ It’s a—”
“A Poe story.”
“Yeah! Aw, man. Yeah, so it’s about that feeling of being lost somewhere, anonymous or invisible. Feeling like you can do anything because you’re just this one tiny speck. But then also how you can’t know who’s watching, and all that anonymity is actually someone’s cover for being able to see everything you thought was secret.”
He’d said this in a rush, and when he finished he looked down, like he didn’t want to see my reaction.
“I like that,” I said. “What about keeping your second chorus the same, then in your bridge, you sing in harmony. Close, close harmony.” I took the guitar from him and demonstrated. “Then you spread the harmony an octave apart for the last chorus and drop the instrument out at the very end. Or have just percussion and voice, like footsteps.”
Theo’s eyes were lasers of focus as I spoke and he started nodding manically. He grabbed the guitar from me and played through the song again, singing lyrics too softly for me to catch more than a word here and there. The song tightened like a noose, and I shivered at the feeling of hitting something just right in a song. I hadn’t worked with someone else in so long. It felt like a phantom limb, familiar but so very far away.
“Fuck,” Theo muttered, “that’s perfect.”
It was. It was absolutely perfect.
He turned to me, eyes dreamy and satisfied. “Thank you.” His gaze darted down to my mouth before he met my eyes again, and I knew. Oh, yeah, I would have that mouth tonight. But not yet.
I hauled myself to my feet. I really did feel old. Too little sleep and too much thinking. Holding out a hand to Theo, I pulled him off the ground.
“Come on, let’s get out of here before someone steals your song, anyway. So, you off on tour? That why you’re leaving our fair city tomorrow?”
“Yeah. We just got back from tour this morning. Four months.” He had his fingers in his mouth again, and I wondered if he’d given up smoking recently or something, or if he just had a wicked oral fixation. “But our manager is extending it. Three more weeks, then ending up in Helsinki for the DeadBeat Festival.”
“Whoa, that’s a big deal.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “I’m fried, though. I’m not sure I can do three more weeks. My voice is strained and I’m just—” He cut himself off, shaking his head. “Jesus, I sound like a real asshole, complaining about getting paid to play music. Don’t listen to me.”
He looked so forlorn, hugging his arms around himself and chewing on his lip.
“Nah, I know what you mean.” I slid a hand to his shoulder as we walked and gave it a squeeze. “Thing about tour, for me anyway, was always finding a way to be there when you needed to be, but go somewhere else in between. Be present for the shows, or for hanging out with your bandmates. But have something for yourself. Now, me? I liked to read mysteries. Looked for the clues, tried to spot the killer. I could read anywhere, just stuck one in my guitar case. Instant escape. But Barker, who used to play with me? He was a needlepoint man.”
