Struts & Frets (13 page)

TJ shrugged and poked at the clam some more.

“This sucks,” I said. “I was really in the mood to play tonight.”

“Me too,” said TJ. “You wanna come with me to play over at Alexander's house?”

“With Alex?”

“Of course.”

“What's he going to play? His hand farts?”

“No,” said TJ, surprised. “Didn't you know? He plays bass.”

“Alexander plays bass?” I repeated.

“He's pretty awesome, too.”

“You've played with him before?”

“A couple of times.”

“Why didn't I know he played bass? Why didn't he ever mention it?”

“You know. It's Alex. He's a weird dude. So how about it?”

“Sure,” I said. “Let's just jam.”

“Cool.” TJ nodded. Then he hesitated. “Laurie's going to come along. Maybe you wanna invite Jen5?”

“I can ask her,” I said. “But she usually isn't interested in tagging along to a rehearsal.”

But when I asked her after school, she
was
interested.

“Really?” I said.

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Sounds like fun.”

“You've never wanted to come to practice before.”

She let out a huge sigh, like she couldn't believe I was so dense. “That's because Joe was there. You know I can't stand that guy.”

“Oh,” I said. Then, “Well, Laurie's going to be there.”

“That's fine,” she said.

“I thought you didn't like her.”

“I didn't like you liking her,” she said. “Now that I don't have to worry about it, she's cool.” Then she raised an eyebrow and said, “But what are you going to do about Joe?”

“I don't know,” I admitted. “Maybe he broke up with her and doesn't really care who she dates.”

“Yeah, that sounds real likely,” she said.

“Maybe he's so blinded by the joy of getting to contribute songs, he won't even care.”

“You're letting him write songs for the band now?” she asked.

“I don't want to talk about it,” I said.

I'd never been to Alexander's house before. He lived a little farther from school in one of the suburbs with big houses and big yards and no sidewalks. I tried to avoid going to places like that as much as possible. When Jen5 and I got there, TJ's car was already parked out front. We knocked on the door and Alexander answered.

“Hey, guys. This is great! Nobody but TJ ever comes this far out.”

We got a brief glimpse of the rest of the house. It had that warm, homey feel, with lots of knickknacks scattered everywhere. But we didn't spend much time in the rest of the house, because Alexander led us down to his furnished basement.

It was like walking down a set of narrow wooden steps and finding paradise. There was a big TV, a game console, a huge stereo, a brand-new Apple computer, and just about every kind of musical instrument and piece of music equipment you could think of.

TJ was already warming up, just playing a light little combo. Laurie was sitting on a couch watching him. She had gone through some kind of makeover since the night before. She'd switched out the goth princess look for some kind of glam retro '80s thing that went perfectly with TJ's modboy hipster look. That wasn't the only change, though. She also looked kind of . . . happy. Jen5 plopped down next to her and they started chatting like they were buddies.

Alexander showed me where to plug in. He handed me a cord and my eyes followed the sleek, clean rubber casing to the amplifier that had more knobs and switches than I knew what to do with. Then my eyes followed the cables from the amp to a full, beautiful speaker stack that was to be the conduit for my sound.

Then he said, “Here's a pedal board.” He handed me a shiny piece of rectangular chrome and black plastic. It had four pedals on it and more little knobs and switches. “It's kind of simple,” he said. “But it's got all the basics: distortion, flange, chorus, and echo. And it's really easy to use.”

What did I say? Paradise.

While I was setting up, Alexander strapped on his bass and started playing. TJ had been right. Alexander really was good. He and TJ didn't have much in common as people, but
listening to them play a simple rhythm section, you could feel that rare kind of rapport between a drummer and bassist that gave every song a solid groove. When I joined in, skimming a melody off the top of their jam, it was so easy because they gave me so much. I understood in that moment something that Gramps had told me over and over again. That you had to be able to trust everyone playing in your band.

When we were taking a little break, I said, “We're playing kind of loud. Are your parents home?”

“They are,” said Alexander.

“Do you think they mind?” I asked.

Alexander shrugged. “The basement's soundproof.”

Heaven.

“So who's going to sing?” asked Alexander. “I have a mic with a stand.”

We looked at one another. We looked at the girls on the couch.

“No way,” said Laurie.

“I don't know any of your music,” said Jen5.

“Why don't you sing, Sammy?” asked TJ. “You know all the words to everything. Don't try to tell me you don't.”

“But I can't sing very well,” I said.

“You sound better than Joe.”

“Yeah, but I don't—”

“Oh, shit, you're just fooling around anyway!” said Jen5. “No record label guys are hiding behind the stereo.”

“Yeah, Sammy,” said Alexander. “Come on. Someone's got to do it.”

“Okay, okay,” I said. I was totally blushing and at first it was hard to relax, sing, and still play guitar. But after the first few songs and nobody laughed, I actually started to have fun with it.

And what did we play? Pretty much everything, from the more pop kind of stuff like Arcade Fire and Death Cab for Cutie, to established stuff like Tom Waits, Modest Mouse, Dinosaur Jr., Soul Coughing, and the Jesus and Mary Chain. Alex knew them all. I even pulled out more obscure bands like Neutral Milk Hotel, Mercury Rev, My Bloody Valentine, and Sparklehorse. Most of those he knew too. And the best thing was, if he didn't know them, after listening to a little bit of it, he would just make up something that was pretty close. It was unreal. A musical genius right under my nose, and I never knew it.

I thought it would be weird having Jen5 and Laurie there, but they made it even better. Laurie was really smiling now, laughing and cheering us on. And Jen5? Well, as much as I wanted to be a rock star, I'd never really felt like one. But that
night, when I saw how she looked at me, I felt like a musical genius myself. I felt like I could do just about anything. And while my experience in dating was kind of slim, I was pretty sure that having someone who made you feel like that was worth a lot.

The only bad part of the night was afterward, when we'd said good night and thanked Alexander's parents for having us over and saying that we'd have to do this again really soon (and meaning it). Jen5 and I walked to the Boat and left behind the warm, cozy feeling of that basement paradise.

“What's up?” she said.

“Nothing.”

“Lies.”

“I don't know,” I said. “It's just . . . this was really nice.”

“Yeah,” she said. “It was.”

“I don't think something like that could ever happen with Tragedy of Wisdom. Not even if we practiced every night for hours.”

“No,” she said. “Probably not.”

“I wish this was the band I was in.”

“Why can't it be?”

“What about Rick?”

“I think he'd get over it.”

“What about Joe?”

“Screw Joe,” said Jen5.

“We'd need a singer.”

“You did great tonight. You were awesome.”

“I can't be a frontman.”

“Jesus, Sammy, how many times do I have to tell you, yes you can.”

I shook my head. “I can't.”

She stopped and grabbed my arm. “Seriously. Why is this such a hang-up for you?”

“You wouldn't understand,” I said.

“Oh, it's too deep for me or something?”

“No,” I said. “That's not it at all.”

“I'm not Mr. Tortured Artist, so I wouldn't get it?”

“No, it's . . .”

“What? Just tell me!”

“It scares the shit out of me, all right? I can play guitar in front of people because I just concentrate on my guitar and pretend there's no one there. But singing, you have to
look
at the audience.”

“But if you just tried—”

“I did try. Rick talked me into this open mic a while back. I walked on that stage, started to play, but I was so nervous, my throat just closed up. I couldn't sing a single note. I vamped for a minute like a complete jackass with everyone staring up
at me, wondering what the hell I was doing. Then I just gave up and walked offstage. And the worst part? The quiet pity applause.” I looked at her. “There. Now you know. Happy?”

She just stared at me with this confused look on her face, her paisley eyes wide, her mouth open a little.

“See, I knew you wouldn't understand,” I said. “You just go into everything fearlessly, like a friggin' Mack truck. Well, not everybody can be like you, okay?”

We drove home in total silence. I think it was the first time I ever got the last word on Jen5 like that. A few weeks ago, that would have given me some kind of weird satisfaction. But something was different now. I didn't like the defeated silence. After a little while, I wanted to break it.

But I just didn't know how.

still really tense between me and Jen5. For most of the day, we did our best to avoid each other. But at lunch, I refused to leave the table and I guess so did she. The two of us ate in silence, purposely not looking at each other, as Rick and Alexander grilled TJ mercilessly on what it was like to date Laurie.

“So, does she have, like, weird body hair somewhere?” asked Alexander.

“I bet she's like a Barbie, without nipples or anything,” said Rick.

“No, there was this one day she was wearing a white T-shirt and it started to rain and I definitely saw nipples,” said Alexander.

“Do you, like, worship at the Temple of Laurie every night?” asked Rick.

“Does she require animal sacrifices?” asked Alexander.

“I bet she likes to talk dirty,” said Rick.

“I bet she recites presidential speeches!” said Alexander.

“What?” Rick turned to him.

“I don't know . . . ,” Alexander said, and shrugged.

TJ just took it the way he usually did, with complete calm. He did have a slight smirk, though. He knew this was like their way of congratulating him. Of course, usually at some point during these riffs, Jen5 would rein Rick and Alex in before they got too offensive. But today she just sat there and ate her sandwich, her arms pulled in to her sides and her head a little bowed, like she was cold. Like she didn't want to be bothered.

I felt guilty, but I couldn't figure out why. It wasn't like I had said anything insulting. If anything, it had been a compliment. She usually
was
fearless. But it felt like I had really let her down somehow. And now I didn't know what to do.

“I mean,” I said to Rick on the drive to rehearsal that afternoon, “am I supposed to apologize for being a pussy or something? Or, now that she knows I'll never be some hunky lead-singer type, she's rethinking wanting to date me?”

“I can't figure out why she's so upset,” said Rick. “I've
always
known you were a pussy.”

“Jesus, can't you be serious just this once?”

“Seriously, I don't know, dude.”

“About Jen5?”

“About whether I can be serious.”

“See, this is when a
real
gayfriend would come in and explain things from her point of view.”

“Sorry I'm not conforming to your stereotype,” said Rick, putting his feet up on the dashboard. “It must be awfully disappointing.”