“I said nothing,” I tell her. I’ve said nothing. There’s been no opportunity for me to say anything to Alex about much more than the mundane, everyday things we say to each other. I’ve been doing laundry and marketing and cooking, and he’s been, well, he’s been oddly contented with himself and spending a lot of time in the den.
But tonight he’s unearthed a guitar, from where I do not know, I can only guess. There’s been one room and one room only that I’ve never been into in the house and that’s the studio. Off limits. Verboten. Do not enter. So I assume that at some point in the day, perhaps when I was out and about squeezing tomatoes and hefting lettuce heads, he went into that sanctum sanctorum and extracted this instrument. If that weren’t enough, he’s playing it, too.
“He must have taught himself,” Mickie murmurs, and I’m not sure if she’s talking to me, or to herself. She seems awed by the entire circumstance. I wonder if she’ll ask to play. She’s played for me and it’s incredibly impressive to hear and watch. She has that practiced ease that only someone who’s done something for years and years has.
Alex does not have that ease. But he also lacks embarrassment. He just plucks away, not singing. I wish he would sing. I would like to hear what he sounds like now, live, instead of having to hear it coming through the car stereo or the headphones in my little house. What he does is hum. He hums along with the meandering notes he plucks and I don’t know if it’s a song, or just some random ramble.
He misses a note, or a progression, something, and laughs and moves to put the guitar aside.
“Wait, here, try it like this,” Mickie jumps in, and she gets up crouches behind Alex where he’s sitting, and puts her fingers on his, positioning his hand for him on the neck of the guitar, yes, I know it’s a ‘neck’, Mickie has schooled me a little.
“She can’t help herself,” Dwayne says to me. He says it with pride, though. Dwayne is not musical at all. He’s one crackerjack realtor, though. I think it’s his eyes. He has trustworthy eyes that look at you directly. I know that if I was selling or buying a house, Dwayne would be the person I would want on my side of the deal. Anyway, he’s watching his wife give some basic instruction and loving what he sees.
Alex fingers the strings again under Mick’s scrutiny and manages to do whatever it was he wanted to do.
“Here, you play,” he says, handing the guitar to Mickie.
“I’d rather listen to you,” she says.
“What a lie,” he laughs.
He hands the guitar over and Mickie sits down beside him. She crosses a leg, and runs her fingers over the strings, makes a few adjustments, and strikes a chord with flourish. Then she starts picking out a melody, one that makes Alex groan, but makes Mickie wink at me, and Tish and Kim sit up.
“C’mon,” Mickie says. “I know you know the words.”
“No way,” Alex says.
“Way,” she insists, and plays the intro again. “C’mon, it’s ‘Unplugged’ in the backyard with A.J. McLean. It’s a set up. What seems like an innocent backyard barbecue is, in reality, a cheesy TV show. The bushes over there are cameramen in disguise. Sing, man.”
“No.”
“Oh, come on,” I say, because I want to hear him sing. His eyes flicker from Mickie, to me, and back and forth twice before he says anything.
“Keep playin’ the intro,” Alex says, and he clears his throat, then takes a drink from the bottle of water in his hands and clears his throat again.
“How many times?” Mickie ask, laughing.
“Until I say not to,” he tells her. He grins, but continues to force coughs and go ‘ahem’ several times.
Mickie continues to play, varying the intro to the song she wants him to sing each time. It makes Alex smile, because as many times as she plays it, she plays it differently each time. I don’t know what passes between the two of them, but Mickie repeats the intro one last time, and then Alex begins to sing. His voice is quiet at first; almost talking over the accompaniment rather than singing. But as the song moves on, his voice begins to swell around the notes Mickie plays, and Mickie presses on, forcing more sound out of the guitar to match Alex’s growing enthusiasm.
I recognize the song. I knew this song before I introduced myself to Backstreet Boys music. It’s “I Want it That Way”, and it was a pretty big hit for them. Big enough that I know it without having to sift through my limited knowledge of their songs.
Alex sounds different live and in person. He sounds more vital than he does recorded. And his voice is something I can only describe as older. Matured. Raspier. There’s a lot of gravel in his voice, and I don’t know if it’s affectation, abuse, or just the way he sounds. His speaking voice has a bit of that in it, so it might just be what he sounds like. Now. That boyish quality and his higher range seem to have disappeared. By the second verse he’s getting a little into the song. His head is moving more, his hands are gesturing a bit instead of doing what they usually do: picking at his clothes. Mickie is watching his hands as much as his mouth, following him where he’s taking her instead of how they started, with him following her lead. And it’s sweet. Very sweet. Because I know that Mickie wanted this, and even more, I can see that Alex wanted this, too.
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I’m scared to death. I don’t know what made me dig out my guitar other than I thought that I could get Mickie to play. Why I just couldn’t ask her to bring her own axe is somethin’ I don’t understand at all. And I knew that if she played, I’d sing.
I forced this on myself.
Because it’s time.
It’s been too long. I’ve only sung in public a coupla times in the past two years or so, and that’s not me. Not me at all. That part of me is still whole and the same. It’s the part that needs a lot of attention and likes to show off. Even now, even though I’m scared that my voice ain’t gonna hold up, that I’m not gonna remember words and breaks and shit, I’m still doin’ it, I’m still singin’, and I can hear myself gettin’ louder.
I don’t sound the same. My voice is rough. Too many cigarettes. I know it every time I smoke one. My voice is naturally rough, but I’ve always been able to smooth it out. Not tonight.
I don’t care, though. I’m singing.
And until I start to do it, and get a little into it, I don’t understand how much I missed this. I missed singin’. I feel more right doin’ it than not doin’ it. Something of what I’ve been comes back to me. I can do this without a drink. Without a hit off somethin’. It’s kinda like its own high in a way. Not in that direct, in your face way a big snort of coke is, but there’s somethin’ about it. Even here, in my backyard.
I wind up the song. It’s my vocal anyway; I closed this song a thousand times. I do it now, and barely get the last note out without havin’ to cough. I’m dry. Nerves. Lack of practice. Both. Who knows. I just know that I’ve done somethin’ I’ve been dead set against doin’ for a long time. And I’ve done it for the right reason.
‘Cause I damn well wanted to.
~~**~~**~~***~~**~~**~~
Mickie is funny. She’s all over the top about this. I don’t mind, no one’s been over the top in a good way ‘bout anything I’ve done in a while, but hearing a pro go on and on about me croakin’ out a song is like, a joke.
“Mick, c’mon. I sucked.”
“You sound the same. You didn’t suck. I know suck when I back it up, which I do on a regular basis to help make the car payments. You didn’t suck. You’re just rough.”
“Rough. Suck. It’s all the same.” I light a cigarette. Okay, so I’m lovin’ the attention. I am. I admit it. I wanna hear how good she thinks I am a few more times. Maybe I’ll really, REALLY believe it then, ya know?
“Well how about you take your rough suck voice downtown tomorrow night? I’m doin’ a quickie gig for a small group, and you could sit in.”
“No, thanks.”
“Not sing, just, you know, hang for the gig. Give me your opinion. That kind of thing,” she presses.
I shake my head. That’s a big leap. I know that if I go, I’m takin’ a risk that she’s gonna start this whole coaxing thing right there in front of a bunch of people I probably don’t know. I don’t want that to happen. This was one thing tonight, to sit in my own yard and let rip with whatever was gonna come outta my mouth. For all I know Mickie’s got some monster gig she’s playin’ down just to get me there, and then once I’m there she’s gonna throw a surprise at me. That’s not the kinda surprise I want.
“It’s no big deal,” she says, and she shrugs. “I’ll leave the address with you. Small place. New. You wanna drop by, fine. You don’t, that’s cool, too. It might be fun, though.”
She scribbles somethin’ on the back of a card. She has cards. Of course she does, she’s a journey man. Never know when an opportunity might present itself. Not that I think she needs the advertising; everyone knows who she is. Everyone. You wouldn’t know it to see her sittin’ here in a pair of wrinkled old cargo shorts and a T-shirt, smoking a cigarette herself. You wouldn’t know that she turns shit down left and right ‘cause she doesn’t wanna go on the road. I didn’t know that until I met her and Shi clued me in. Mick won’t leave Kim for the road. Not for any amount of money. Says she can wait until Kim’s in college to even think about hauling ass on the road.
Man. You about meet no one in the business who’s got an ounce of, of principles, I guess you’d call it. Mick’s got principles.
And I cringe to myself when I think that I’ve been livin’ here for over a year and she’s been my neighbor, sort of, well, she lives near by, and I didn’t know. Not only didn’t I know, I didn’t even try to find out who my neighbors are. It took Shi and Tish to make this connection, and I know, deep down, that even if I blow tomorrow night off, which I probably will, it won’t matter. Mick will still come around, and she’s gonna keep askin’ me to sit in until I do sit in.
I look at Shi, who’s been quiet all this time. She hasn’t said much of anything tonight. That’s not unusual. She’s pretty quiet as a rule, but she’s sorta stepped back tonight and let Mick have the floor. Let me have the floor. And these people here, they’re not really my friends, they’re her friends.
If it wasn’t for her, Mickie wouldn’t be here.
I see the necklace. It glints in the light from the candles she’s lit all over the place. The stone is lighter in the dark. Amber colored. A real find. Just like Shi. JUST like her. A find. She sees me watchin’ her and raises an eyebrow. Then she gets up from where she’s been sittin, and leans over me to say somethin’.
I’d like to say that I’m payin’ attention to her, to what she’s gonna say, but my eyes are glued to a place they shouldn’t be. I tell myself I’m lookin’ at the necklace. I am. The pendant’s danglin’ near my nose, she’s just that close to me. I can smell some perfume on her. I didn’t even know she wore perfume. A piece of her hair touches my cheek. Her hand is on the plastic bottle I’m still holdin’. It’s empty.
“You need a refill,” she says. Then she lowers her voice so only I can hear her. “Why don’t you go with Mickie tomorrow night?”
It’s not a question. It’s said in the same way people have said things to me my whole life, as if my answer will be my decision, and not theirs. I didn’t know that Shi could do that, that she knew that trick. And it works. I nod. I lift my eyes to hers and nod and know that I’m goin’ with Mickie tomorrow night. And when I see Shi’s smile, I know that was the right answer.
She’s not gonna let me make too many mistakes.
Maybe none at all.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
