Read Everybody Knows Your Name Online
Authors: Andrea Seigel
“You're the one who insisted on coming,” Robyn says. She doesn't look at him. It seems like they've already been fighting.
I have plenty of terrible things to say about my own town, but I don't like hearing this guy talk bad about it.
“Who's this rude son of a bitch?” asks Sissy, looking kind of nonchalantly at Spider. She's used to this kind of demeanor.
“No, who are
you
?” demands Spider.
“Stop, stop, stop.” Robyn puts up a hand. “Enough! Do
not
start.”
“Start what?” Spider says with this innocence that also comes off as mean. “I thought one of the things you wanted me to change was for me to be more social, so I'm just trying to get to know everyone.”
“Ugh,” Robyn says. She turns her back on him to wrap a belt around my waist. “I can't believe I let you convince me that this trip would be good for us.”
“Don't turn your back on me,” Spider says, and he goes to put a hand on her again. This time it's her neck. I can tell you my thought process in this moment. I immediately wish I could land a punch right between Spider's crazy eyes. I want it to be solid and real and to feel his nose give way under my knuckles.
But instead I open my hands and I place them on his chest, and I apply only the force I need to get him off my friend. Because this time, I'm not going to do the stupid thing. I'm not going to put myself at the mercy of all the disappointment in myself, all the regret. Because I refuse to watch the finale slip away from me like a light that's being dimmed.
Spider stumbles back toward a rack.
After I've pushed him, I learn that his eyes have an even crazier setting. “That was pitifully stupid, man,” he says. “I think I might just have to call the police and tell them you assaulted me. Yeah, that was definitely assault.”
“No, it wasn't, Spider,” Robyn says.
“You have no one to back you up,” Maggie says.
But Sissy says, “Go ahead and call them. I'll confess I hit you.”
Spider cocks his head. “What?”
“Yeah, I hit you.”
Spider looks confused as Sissy punches him right in the nose.
Spider staggers back into a rack of clothes. Nose bleeding. He screams, “What the hell?”
“You had it coming.” Sissy shrugs. “You have a face that needs punching.”
“Sissy, you still have a record,” I say. “You could get in real trouble.”
She looks at me with something tender in her eyes. “This is what family's for. And also to win singing contests and buy their older sisters a top-notch lawyer.”
I look at her with something tender in my eyes too. So maybe I've changed, or am trying to change, and Sissy probably never will. Maybe she's set firm, like a kid's name carved in the sidewalk. But in her case it just feels like something I can always find my way back to.
Sissy turns to Spider. “But thing is, I'll just tell the police I was defending your woman from youâ”
“I'm
not
his woman,” Robyn says.
Sissy continues. “And that will get even uglier for you than your nose.”
Spider stares at her from atop his cupped hands. “I need to see a doctor.”
Robyn's voice is all ice toward him now. “There should be a medic's tent right outside the trailer.”
“I'll escort you, bud, since it's the least I can do for hitting you,” Sissy says, going over to open the door for him. Spider pauses like he's going to do something else here, but then he just turns and steps out.
Before she leaves, Sissy says to Robyn, “I want you to introduce me to Thor.” Once she's outside, we can hear her telling Spider, “Don't worry, could have been worse. Could have been a pair of scissors in your knee.”
“I don't know, you would think a guy named Spider would be tougher,” Magnolia says. The tough thing for me was not punching him, but I know now I just can't keep having the same reactions over and over.
A girl with a clipboard peers into the trailer, looking freaked out, probably about the guy with the bloody nose who just passed by. “Uh, fifteen minutes to show time. They want you in the wings.”
“I hope this incident doesn't cause you more problems,” I say to Robyn.
She smooths the collar of my T-shirt and makes a shooing motion toward the door. “It's called a restraining order, and it's so way overdue. Now, there's no point in you looking great if you don't win.”
“Thank you for everything,” I say.
“Go get it.”
Magnolia and I follow the clipboard girl out of the trailer, through some tents, and toward the back of the stage. I can hear a warm-up guy working the crowd, firing
Spotlight
T-shirts out of an air cannon. It's cheesy, but sometimes cheesy is all right. It sounds like an actual concert crowd. I can sense the size of it before I see it.
I feel outside my own body. Crew members ask me questions about staging and placement because there's been no time for a morning rehearsal. I'm saying stuff back, but I'm not sure it makes sense. Catherine appears and passes me the bottle of liquid from the doctor, and I throw it back and gargle before I spit into a plastic cup.
Maggie and I take steps up to the side of the stage. We're concealed, but now we can see the crowd. It stretches back as far as I can see down Main Street in both directions. The sun is gilded. My dying town, exploding with humanity, totally alive.
Magnolia looks out, then silently mouths
Whoa
at me. The backing band is already in place. A crew member starts to hand me the guitar I was using on the show, but Magnolia gives him the case with the Telecaster. She's been watching over it this whole time. I take it out and let the tech guys plug it into the wireless system and tune it up.
“I don't think I've ever been so nervous. What if my voice won't work?” I say, trying to shake the nerves out of my fingers.
“Don't try to figure out what it all means. Just do the next thing.” Maggie looks steadily into my eyes, her dark eyes radiating calm steadiness. I take a deep breath.
“I love you,” I say.
She kisses me. Then they're doing an introduction over the sound system. I look out at the stage. It seems like someone should go out there and perform. Oh yeah, I guess that would be me.
Someone hands me the Telecaster.
I walk onto the stage, pulling the guitar strap over my neck. The noise from the crowd rises up and floods over me. As I take my place at the edge, I see Sissy in the front row, howling and whistling. There are other familiar faces, including Janet from the jail and even my ex-girlfriend, the Mattress Princess, who's found her way up close. She's accompanied by the Mattress King himself, and he's pumping his fist in the air.
“Thank you for coming out, Calumet!” I say into the microphone. “I'm Ford Buckley.” The crowd roars, and hearing my amplified voice pulls me back into my own body. I'm in this moment, where I belong. I look behind me to check on the backing band and do a double take because Leander's on the bass, which must be Catherine's doing. He flashes a peace sign, and I smile at him. I wait a few seconds, trying to settle into a feeling for once.
Then I begin strumming the opening E chord of “In the New Year” by the Walkmen.
The first verse the band doesn't play along, so it's just my slightly distorted, steady guitar chords, and my voice. I start singing, my voice subdued, lyrics about living at the same old address, waiting on bad weather to pass.
Now bass and drums drop in (
duh-duh-duh-thump-duh-duh
), and I can feel the force of them in the monitors. I take a deep breath. Dueling emotions of fear and hope start to rise in my voice. The cameramen get closer. The keyboard climbs along with me, sounding like a church pipe organ, soaring higher and higher.
My performance is about clinging to the hope in these lyrics that it's finally going to be a good year. The hope starts to rise above the fear, but it can't seem to erase it. They can't be separated. They're joined together.
The emotion swelling in my chest almost breaks my voice as I sing the lyric about my heart being in such a strange new place. I look over at Magnolia, standing on the side of the stage, eyes shining.
These lyrics paint scenes of great victories over all our troubles, fears, and failures. The song gives me this image of a dark frozen landscape, where nothing ever changes. Then, something new: a flower grows in the snow, a lightning bolt out of the dark sets a dead tree on fire,
something
is finally different than it was, and then you know if something can change, maybe everything can.
The crowd sways, a sea of faces and waving hands in a street that's been empty my whole life.
But I know the song's dark side too. It's foolishly optimistic, only wanting to see the good outcomes, ignore the bad. I know I might lose. I don't know how Magnolia and I are going to stay physically close to each other; win or lose, we'll still have to be in different places. Calumet might slowly sink and disappear into the mud around it; and one day, when I look back, this might have been the high point of an ever-shrinking life.
But today it feels like even something as small as a rock song can set in motion changes that no one can stop.
I sense the vibrations moving specks of air and light around me, pushing between the bodies in the crowd, reverberating through the town, shaking the old brick buildings, echoing across the rooftops, ringing off the silver water tower, and out over the farmland where my grandparents are buried. I imagine the sound waves rolling on until they're rattling the boarded-up windows of dying towns all across the country.
I look again at Magnolia. Here's to hope.
From: [email protected]
Subject: ships
hey hayes,
per our discussion, i revised the last scene of ep. 8 of ships--please see attached.
and to answer your question about that “access hollywood” interview:
sorry, still can't do it.
hope all's well, though!
magnolia
From: [email protected]
Subject: Help managing Magnolia
Lucien,
We can't get through to Magnolia about this interview. Can you PLEASE tell her it will be great??? They just want to spend an afternoon with her over at Ford's new house. The conceit is that she's helping him decorate because he has terrible taste in furnishing. Cute, right? The exec producer Angie has sworn to me they'll let Magnolia talk about Ships for at least a minute of the segment. It's a win-win!
Can you help us out and convince her to do this? I know she respects your opinion a ton.
Hayes
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From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Help managing Magnolia
Hayes man,
That doesn't sound that cute. I'll be honest. I want to get to continue to make money with you in the future, so I say this with peace and love, peace and love:
I can't help you with Magnolia.
She doesn't want to parade her relationship around. She doesn't want to do segments. She just wants to write, and I support her on that.
Good talk!
L
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: ships
Magnolia, Magnolia, Magnolia,
The people at AH are telling me they'll pay for Ford's furnishings, so how does that sound? I know he probably thinks that money will get him his dream everything, seeing as how he's not from around here. But shit's expensive in LA!
Ha ha ha.
But seriously. U should want to do this interview. Don't you want people to care about Ships? Make them care about you. Something to think about.
You're very young, still. I'm offering guidance. Really think you should take it.
Hayes
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From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: re: ships
hayes,
my dad was an investment consultant, and i have to tell you, i understood next to nothing about what he did. i'm just not a numbers person. when i was really little i'd play with his briefcase and pull out papers and they might as well have been in egyptian. no clue what any of it meant. once i got to elementary school age, my dad started bringing me into his office for “take your daughter to work” day, and this one year i got to sit in on a big meeting. i was around eight. again, i had zero clue what they were talking about. zero. but there came this moment where i could sense that my dad was fighting for some kind of decision that all his colleagues at the table were nervous about. they were saying, “bad idea” and “we can't see the logic in it.” my dad turned on the projector and this page with all of these calculations and tables came up on the big, glowing screen at the front of the room. to this day, i have no idea what any of those calculations or tables meant. that's not the point. i'm not talking about math. my dad pointed to his calculations and tables and he said to the other people in the room, “this is all you need to know.” that's all he said! i was so struck by that move, even as a little kid. he put his work up there for them to see, and he left it at that. no song and dance. he wasn't trying to hide anything. or trying to tell them to just trust him based on nothing. he was showing them his very best ideas. he was letting them know, “here's what i have to say.” they could look as deeply into it as they wanted. because the answers were all in the work.
magnolia
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: re: re: ships
Magnolia, you're KILLING me here.
I just talked to AH. They're saying they can get you some free furniture too. I know you're still living at your mom's, but what about a new bed set?
Hayes
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From: [email protected]
Subject: this is all you need to know
i'm good, thanks.
magnolia