It was a solid start, and John’s terror cranked itself up.
Don’t fuck this up, don’t fuck this up, don’t fuck this up.
He almost missed his cue. The opening figure was nearly wrapped up, and there he was, standing like an idiot on the side of the stage. He forgot all about ditching the jacket, crossed the stage in a few quick strides, and made it to the mic just in time to hit the first line.
What if I can’t sing?
He was out of time. He opened his mouth and sang.
“Light it up!
Light it up, baby
Let the fireworks fly
They say we all gotta die
But I’m goin’ up like a rocket tonight”
To his horror, the words came out flaccid and half strangled. He knew they weren’t his best lyrics, not by a long shot, but they were all he’d been able to fit to the rolling, tumbling, sleazy riff Case had brought to the group, and if they weren’t going to stand up on their own, he’d have to sell them.
And he wasn’t selling them. There was a spotlight in his face, so he couldn’t see the crowd, but he didn’t need to. He could imagine the look of mild boredom on the faces of Quentin’s buddies and the group of girls who had come to see Case, to say nothing of the other bands and the people who had come to see them.
Fuck that,
he thought.
Johnny Tango doesn’t give a damn what those people think. He
means
this shit.
Now he felt the push, that weird sense of something pushing forward in his mind that he’d gotten so used to over the last few weeks. Had it been there at the beginning of the song, and he’d been too tense to pay it any attention? He didn’t know, but it was followed, as always, by that questioning feeling—only this time, the feeling came as an actual voice, quiet but sure, a ragged whisper in his head, as clear as if it had been piped through headphones despite the volume of the band.
Now?
it asked.
He flinched, startled, but then relief flooded him. He hadn’t been abandoned or cheated. He could do this.
Yeah.
John grabbed the mic with both hands. The black jacket seemed to suck up the light, suck up some energy in the room and transfer it to him. He belted out the second verse with something that could almost be mistaken for confidence, his voice steadier and stronger than ever, and he even gave it a little swagger at the end.
“They’re watching me
They’re watching me, baby
Waitin’ for the flash
Waitin’ for me to crash
But I’m burnin’ up before I hit the ground”
He looked to his right. Case was doing her best Slash impression, her legs in a wide stance while she held the guitar almost vertical. Her fingers flew over the fretboard. She spared him a grin, though, and an almost imperceptible nod.
He flashed a sneering half-smile back at her and hit the chorus:
“Get it hot enough, and everything burns
And baby I’m ready
Ready to burn every
Everything down tonight”
He was feeling it, now. He threw himself into the last line of the chorus, tearing the words from his throat so violently that his voice cracked and broke on the word
tonight
.
For once, he didn’t care. The attitude was right, and Johnny Tango was all about attitude. So it wasn’t pretty—big fucking deal. Johnny Tango didn’t give a damn about pretty, unless you were talking about chicks or cars, and, truth be told, it was optional as far as chicks were concerned.
There was a space in the music after the first chorus, a spot where the guitar dropped out for a few bars before roaring back in for the next verse. Sweat poured off John’s face as he stepped up to the mic during the lull, and, without even knowing he was going to do it before the words came out of his mouth, he shouted at the crowd.
“Is it hot enough for you, motherfuckers?”
And by God, a few people in the bar yelled back at him. Quentin was so surprised, either by John or by the crowd response, that he flubbed the transition back to the verse. He recovered quickly, though, and they rolled into the third verse without a major disaster.
John could hear part of his mind yammering at him from the back.
John, what are you doing? You’re acting
crazy
! What are they going to think? They’re going to know you’re a fraud.
He hesitated for just a fraction of a second before blowing it off.
John ain’t home,
he thought,
and Johnny don’t give a fuck.
They plowed through the rest of the song, finishing it to real, enthusiastic applause and a couple of shouted “Yeah”s. John looked over his shoulder at Danny, who was smiling like a fool. Danny cocked a finger at him, and the meaning couldn’t be clearer—
Nice job, bro.
John couldn’t help smiling a little in response.
They burned through the rest of the set. They hit “Rust,” “Twenty-First Century Blues,” “Walkin’,” and “Changing Gears” in succession, and they pretty much nailed all of ’em, John thought. Danny and Quentin were as tight as they’d ever been. Case went off to wherever it was she went when she performed, and she must have found something pretty goddamn good there, because her extended solo in “Walkin’” was so smoking hot it even got John’s attention, and he’d seen her play it two or three times a week for months. He remembered to call her out at the end of the song—“Give it up for Case on lead guitar!”—and she flashed him a grateful smile while her little cheering section went crazy.
For his part, John never quite hit the intensity in the rest of the set that he had during the last half of “Burn,” partly because he couldn’t keep his nagging conscience silent. The other thing, the voice, strained and flexed, but the part of him that got awkward in public and was perpetually afraid of embarrassment held it back, always telling him to back off a little, don’t get too close to the edge—there was no telling what you’d see down there, and what if you slipped? He couldn’t keep it silent, but he kept it quiet, and that was a good start.
He knew it wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot, but he felt proud of his performance for maybe the first time since he’d gotten up, shaking and terrified, on an open-mic stage.
Not a bad night’s work, he thought as the last note rang out.
***
They cleared their stuff off the stage in the customary frantic rush while the next band set up, stashing the gear in the side room. Case slapped Quentin on the back as they walked out of the storage room together. “Good show,” she said. His eyes widened, startled, but he managed a smile.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it was.” He scurried off toward the table his friends were sitting at, and Case made for the bar.
“Case!” Erin screamed.
She’s louder than my fucking amplifier
, Case thought with amazement. “Erin!” she yelled back, much less loudly.
“You’re awesome!” Erin rushed forward, arms outstretched for a hug.
“Whoa, there!” Case held up two hands in self-defense. “I’m all sweaty, and I stink like a pig. Trust me, you don’t want any of this right now.”
Erin stood there for a moment, at a loss for how to proceed. “You’re awesome!” she shouted again after a few seconds.
Case laughed and slid around her to the bar. She ordered a Jack and Coke and turned around to find herself surrounded by a semicircle of women—Erin’s friends.
“When are you going to teach me to play guitar?” Erin asked, way more loudly than necessary. She wasn’t wasted yet, but it sure looked like she’d had more than one, and they were working already.
“Right after I show you how to break a man’s arm using only two fingers.”
“You can do that?”
“
I
can do that. I don’t know about you yet.” There was general laughter. That helped Case to feel at ease, but she still felt a little boxed-in and awkward. She had just met these women, except for Erin, and she didn’t know what to say to any of them.
That turned out not to be much of a problem. They asked her some questions about music that were easy to answer, and Erin—talkative, excitable Erin, God bless her—smoothed over everything else, dragging the conversation all over hell and gone without so much as a backward glance.
Case had started to feel pleasantly extraneous to all this noise when she happened to catch a glimpse of John and Danny. The two brothers were sitting back at the same table they’d started the night at. Danny was talking to somebody—a fellow drummer, Case guessed from the Zildjian shirt—but John sat apart, disengaged and quiet. He’d been watching her and the people with her, Case thought. He looked quickly away, but she saw the resentment on his face.
Well fuck him,
she thought, angry at first. But she looked back at him, and this time she saw the pain under the resentment. The anger died away as fast as it had flared up, and she thought she understood now. He’d really outdone himself tonight, gave a performance that she hadn’t thought was in him, and probably neither had he. And it looked like nobody had even noticed.
That sucks. He deserves better than that.
“Hey Erin,” she said, inadvertently cutting the other woman off in midsentence.
“What’s up?” Erin asked. She didn’t seem to notice the interruption—just hopped right off one sentence and onto the next, like they were all trains that would get her where she was going.
“You should meet John . . . ny. Uh, Johnny.” What was the protocol for stage names? she wondered. Did he go back to being John right after getting off the stage, or was he supposed to wait until he left the building? She had no idea, but he was Johnny now, and she guessed he’d stay that way for the rest of the night. “The singer,” she added for clarification.
“Cool,” Erin said.
Case led the group over and made introductions. She didn’t remember most of the names, but once Erin was introduced, she did the rest. Erin had a talent, Case realized, one that she herself lacked and didn’t understand—she drew John and Danny and the other guy into the conversation effortlessly, and before long the whole group was talking as if they’d known each other for years. The next band started playing, but the group just talked louder.
Case sat back, watching and listening with a low anxiety building in her stomach. The conversation was all right, but the room was too loud, and something nagged at her, a feeling like low voices in the next room talking about her or . . . or somebody watching her.
“What is it?” Danny asked her, the fourth time she looked over her shoulder. “Expecting someone?”
“No,” she said. This was ridiculous. Rather than take surreptitious glances behind her all night, she turned around and studied the crowd directly.
She saw him immediately. He sat at a table alone, and even though there were a fair number of people in the club, he had space on all sides. A young man, unshaven, with short, spiked hair and a black silk shirt. He could have been any twentysomething out for the night . . .
Except for his face. His head lolled forward and his mouth hung open. A thin shining cable of drool connected him to the table.
And he was staring at her. If you didn’t look closely, he seemed like he was wasted, ready to pass out and hit the floor any minute now, but his eyes were fixed on her, crafty, clear, and unwavering.
When her eyes met his, the slack came out of his face and a slow grin stretched his mouth. A
hungry
grin. She could see his teeth gleam from across the bar. The tip of his tongue, pink and wormlike, slid across them.
“What the fuck?” Danny asked. He was leaning around her, looking at the guy.
Case moved.
“Hey, wait!” Danny said, and he put his hand on her shoulder. She found that she didn’t mind, but he’d better not try to stop her. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to go talk to that creep.”
“I’ll do it.”
She didn’t even respond to that statement, just started walking.
Case got to the table with Danny right behind her. The two of them loomed over the creep, who twisted his head sideways and looked up at Case with narrow eyes, crinkled at the corners like he was laughing about something.
“You got a problem?” she asked. That much seemed self-evident now that she was close up. Was he fucked up on something? PCP, maybe?
He leered at her, pulling the corners of his mouth wider than seemed natural.
“You’ve got three seconds to wipe that smile off your face before I do it for you. And maybe do a little impromptu dental work while I’m at it.” She thought she sounded tough, but something told her to get away from this guy. He wasn’t just creepy. He wasn’t . . . right. At all. He should never have been let out of the house by himself. Or the institution.
“Ready to burn, ready to burn, ready to burn,”
he crooned in a cracked voice. Goose bumps ran all the way up Case’s arms, over her shoulders, her neck.
Case stepped back and automatically checked the distance to the exits.
All at once, the guy slumped and fell across the table, knocking his plastic cup over and spilling its contents everywhere. Case jumped. The sharp scent of alcohol filled the air.