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“One…two…” Jesse starts, the parenthesis back around his lips, his freckles diving into the crease. His lips mouth the rest. “One, two, three…”
I kick in, and his eyes close. Rag picks up as if we were always playing together, and I study my hands with too much intensity. I hope they don’t hear it, but I know I’m not relaxed. This beat—it needs jelly in my bones. I remember to breathe, and make eye contact with Rag, who nods with my bass, sneering in that good way that means he likes it.
Jesse doesn’t look, thank the fucking lord! I loosen up as he starts to play, and I adjust my position to give my feet room to really feel the pedal. The bass is what sells this. The rest is subtle. Just like Jesse’s voice.
The second his lips part with a breath and his head turns enough to give me a clear shot of his periphery, I decide. I’m going to kill it. Chris doesn’t deserve to give rhythm to a song like this and play behind a guy like that. He’s nowhere in the same league. Plus, I am drunk on Jesse. If I had any ability to draw at all, and I would make a comic book boy just like him, and his lip would curl…just…like…that.
I exhale, like a lover. He begins to sing, and I let my eyes close. I feel it. I think of how he cried, just a little this morning, and how he cries harder with his voice now. It’s so powerful, and I’m not sure if those words would mean as much from anyone else’s lips, in any other timber.
I haven’t heard this song go on this far before. With Chris, they never made it much past the bridge. I do my best to hang on, but eventually, Jesse has to cut it. I clench my jaw, bracing myself, instantly upset that I disappointed him.
“Sorry…” I start, but he takes my sticks from my hands as I’m mid-verse.
“Don’t be,” he interjects, waving them. “You don’t know this.”
I nod, nervously, and glance up to meet Rag’s grin. He gives me a thumbs up, so I give one back and then turn my attention back to Jesse, who’s already working out something on the snare.
“This isn’t perfect, but it’s what we had Chris doing. Just…if you can kinda get how this goes with my voice…”
My breath hitches, and I feel my red skin creeping in. I should have worn longer sleeves, but I’m glad the neck of my T-shirt is high, almost a choker. My lips are quivering with nerves and anticipation. He’s so close that I could lick his neck if I wanted to. I mean…I want to. It would just be weird. He smells like honey, and shampoo, which means he probably showered for me. Not for me, but before I came.
His voice begins, and my thought-racing halts.
“You made me, then you left this, with this, with that, with all of it. You left me, you left this, you took this, took that, took all of it. Selfish bastard, lunatic. Just a little crazy. Just like you, that’s how I knew. Nobody knows, but everyone. Let’s just pretend and get to the end.”
My chest caves in at the chorus. Knowing what I know now, about Jesse and his father—who is, without any better definition, famous for being a one-hit-wonder and a loser. Alton Berringer had a killer song about twenty years ago, and then he washed up barely alive on the Miami shore after a cocaine bender on a yacht. That was his first trip to rehab. Three more strikes, because rock stars always get four, and he went to prison. He’s supposedly sober now. For now. He’s also irrelevant.
And apparently, he’s a really shitty father.
“You got that?” Jesse’s eyes flit up to mine, and I lick my dry lips. His eyes move to my mouth.
“I think so,” I say, barely above a whisper. I take the sticks from him and feel the same touch as earlier, his fingers brushing against mine and sending a jolt through my veins, my hands suddenly gripped with energy. I shake them out, one at a time, knowing I can’t play when I’m all tense. I favor smooth.
Jesse begins again, a few bars back, and Rag and I pick up, easing into this new part through the refrain. This time, Jesse looks at me, as if seeing him say the words will somehow lead me through. My hands work independently of the rest of my body. My foot somehow managing the pedal, my chest flowing with the emotion, my hands working it out until it feels just right. The sound…it’s not snare at all. This has to be the high-hat, and the bass. It has to build…to something. My neck swivels and Jesse closes his eyes, settling in. I feel it coming, the sneer that paints his lips and scrunches his eyes tightly as his mouth opens wider until he’s nearly shouting. This song is not just therapy. It’s his anthem. It’s his fuck you, and so help me I’m going to make it just right—just how he needs it.
I ratchet the sound up, I pick up the beat, I hammer the bass and the cymbals and I let it all get messy for just a hiccup before it stops. I clutch the cymbals in my palms, squelching their massive vibration while Jesse breathes. That’s it. That’s where it ends.
He starts to laugh, leaning back on his heels a little topsy-turvy as his free hand clutches at his hair and his other one swings his guitar to his back.
“Hell yeah!” He hoots a few times, like he did earlier, then looks to his cousin, who nods with this pompous and satisfactory smile. My body pulses. It throbs. It takes a while for a drummer to lose the beat. This one, it’s going to stay with me for a long while.
I’ve learned that his mother’s last name is Quaker. Amanda Quaker. I didn’t ask him questions or learn anything through normal methods. That would require us to sit down and talk and get to know each other, and it’s becoming clearer and clearer that whatever this evolution is between Jesse Berringer and me, it’s strange and unquantifiable.
I found out by breaking into her mail.
I know. It’s a shitty thing to do. But mailboxes here come in clusters, and they’re always being broken into. Someone left the front contraption that covers all of our boxes open the other day, so I went nosing around. Sam told me to look for Christmas cards with money inside, but I’m not a thief. I’m just a spy.
Correction…stalker.
My best guess is that Jesse’s brother and sister, who I now know are named Collin, six, and AmberLynn, not a prima donna, are from a failed marriage sometime after Jesse came into the picture. I guess they could be two separate marriages, but they look a lot alike, so my gut says one. They look nothing like Jesse.
Jesse looks a lot like Alton.
Alton Berringer, who showed up in Jesse’s driveway about twenty minutes ago, right before I left my house for what will be my third official rehearsal with the band since they booted Chris to make room for me. Our first gig is in a week—a Christmas party at a burger joint one suburb closer to LA. I don’t even feel remotely prepared, but Jesse told me two days ago that I’m already a thousand times better than Chris. I just feel like I’m winging it all the time. Maybe that’s how this band works. This band that
still needs a name.
Rag stopped me on my way, rolling down the window of his Camaro that was parked a house down from mine. I got inside, and we’ve been sitting in here, with the lights knocked out but the motor humming to keep the radio on, ever since.
