Work Text:
“Tracy and Ben? We’re opening for fucking Tracy and Ben?” Ray stared up at the nightclub’s marquee, but the letters up there refused to rearrange themselves to spell out something less motherfuckingly ridiculous.
“Who the fuck are Tracy and Ben and why do you care?” Joe asked.
“They’re a fucking country band,” Ray said. “Like, an honestly actually kind of famous one. For Canadians. People have heard of them.”
“I haven’t.”
Ray rolled his eyes. “Of course not, because you don’t actually like music except for yours. So you booked us a gig and didn’t ask who we were opening for? Does the manager even know who we are? Are they expecting twangy guitars and chicks crying in their beer?”
“They’re expecting Hard Core Logo, Stanny-Boy. Just like it says on the damn sign. And our set starts in forty-five minutes, so if you want to do a fucking sound check, stop whining and get your ass inside.”
Joe pushed past Ray and stomped inside, carrying his guitar and nothing else, because of course he expected Ray and Pipefitter and Oxenberger to do all the heavy lifting.
No, that wasn’t fair, Ray told himself. Joe didn’t expect them to do all the work, he just expected the work to magically get done by punk elves. Or by the roadies Hard Core Logo had never had, or at least, not as long as Ray had been in the band. Maybe back when they were almost kind of famous. Back in the days of Billy Tallent. But then again, maybe not; maybe that would have been too bourgeois and conformist. Maybe keeping it real meant hauling your own amps and drum sets, like it meant sleeping four to a room in the skeeviest motel in town.
Ray turned back to the van and nearly ran face-first into Pipe and Ox, who were wrestling the big amp up over the curb.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“Hey, Tracy and Ben,” said Ox. “Those guys are great.”
Ray dragged a drum case out of the van, took one last, disbelieving look at the goddamned marquee, shook his head, and followed them up the deathtrap stairs into the club.
* * *
The dressing room was nowhere near big enough for eleven people, especially not when one of them was Joe Dick, who pretty much tried to suck the air out of any room he walked into. Joe currently had his guitar case taking up half the tiny makeup counter, which he was lounging against, blocking basically the whole thing. A petite, pretty woman in a flowing black dress-pantsuit-thing with trailing sleeves was facing off with him. Ray couldn’t have picked Tracy Jenkins out of a lineup, but there was only one woman in the room, so he figured this was her.
Joe was saying something about, “. . .you can call the management.” He thrust his head forward, literally getting in her face.
“Oh, now, I don’t guess there’s any need for that,” she said, all polite and soothing, but also not budging an inch, despite Joe's bulk looming over her and his aggressive pout. “There’s room enough for everyone if we all just pack in and keep our elbows in, don’t you think?”
She was obviously a pro at the smoothing-things-over-without-letting-people-walk-over-her game, but Ray could’ve told her that strategy wouldn’t play with Joe. Joe had no use for charm or politeness and he was pretty much violently opposed to anything being smooth, ever.
He cocked his head and widened his eyes, raising his voice in the mocking, lilting falsetto that normally made people—including Ray—want to punch him in the mouth. “Oh! Oh! My dressing room is full of horrible hoodlums! Don’t you know that my contract has a special clause specifying that there must be at least three feet of space at all times between the unwashed masses and my precious first-billing ass?”
That made her look like she’d bitten a lemon, although, full points for her, she still didn’t give any ground. Before either she or Joe could say anything else, a tall, dark-haired guy in a blue, fringed vest stepped neatly between them.
“Pardon me, I don’t believe we’ve met.” His expression was bland, his voice quietly polite, but his body language sent Ray’s combat instincts into red alert. “Ben Fraser. And, of course, Tracy Jenkins needs no introduction.”
He held out a hand, though Ray didn’t think that was because he was dumb enough to expect Joe to actually shake it. Which Joe didn’t; he took a drag on his cigarette and blew a couple of sloppy smoke rings in Ben and Tracy's general direction. Tracy’s eyes narrowed in annoyance, though she was obviously trying not to let Joe think he was getting under her skin. Ben’s face stayed bland as Botox, but his nose wrinkled a little as the smoke wafted into his face.
Under the soft denim and fringed leather, Ben was trim and muscular, taller than Joe if maybe not as heavy, and he carried himself like he knew his way around a fight. Ray didn’t want to see how far Joe could push this guy or what would happen if he did. So he shouldered past Pipefitter and a couple of other musicians who were either enjoying the free show or waiting for the signal to rumble, and threw an arm over Joe’s shoulder. Somewhat risky move, but worst case, Joe would punch him instead of tonight’s main attraction.
“Hey kids,” he said, giving Ben and Tracy his best shot at a winning smile. “This is Joe Dick, he’s all about the truth in advertising.”
Ray had long since given up trying to convince Joe that he didn’t have to be a dick all the time, for no reason. Insults were pretty much the only language Joe spoke, which meant Ray could generally get his point across. It did mean that sometimes Joe took his head off for what Ray thought was a joke, but more often, actual for-real insults just rolled off Joe’s back.
Case in point: Joe grinned and pointed finger-guns at Tracy, deliberately ignoring Ben, who met Ray's eyes and gave him a subtle nod of acknowledgement.
“And this asshole’s the comic relief,” Joe said, jerking his chin at Ray.
Tracy was already looking at Ray with that don’t-I-know-you-from-somewhere? frown people gave him from time to time.
“I don’t believe I’ve heard you boys play before,” she said. “But—”
“You’re thinking of someone else,” Ray interrupted hastily, instinctively putting his shoulder between her and Joe, like if he blocked her from Joe's view, Joe wouldn't be able to hear her.
“Jenifur,” Ben murmured in Tracy's ear, just loud enough for Ray to catch. "Billy Tallent."
Tracy frowned like that didn't explain anything at all, but she'd obviously picked up on Ray's unsubtle signal to change the damn topic, like, yesterday, so she put on a bright hostess smile and said, “Well, I’m looking forward to sharing the stage with you boys tonight.”
“You’ve never heard our music, have you?” Ray blurted.
She raised her eyebrows. Ben was poker-faced but Ray thought he saw amusement sparkling in the guy’s eyes. Too late to try for tactful, Ray figured he'd better let these people know what they were in for.
“I mean. . .” He gestured to himself and Joe: skull-shaped rings, gelled hair and two-day stubble; mohawk and shredded black sweater over more black. Then at Tracy in her cowboy hat and gauzy ensemble, Ben with his fringed leather vest, baby-smooth shave and tumble of dark curls. “We’ll drive your fans out of the house like rat poison. Or else they’ll run us out of town. And if any of our fans actually show up. . .” He shook his head. “It’ll be a bloodbath.”
“We do seem to be an. . .oddly-assorted program,” said Ben seriously. “But surely that’s no cause for physical violence.”
“Maybe not for your fans,” Ray said.
Ben and Tracy exchanged a look that set off Ray’s buried-but-not-dead cop radar. They’d seen some kind of violence, despite their wholesome, prosperous looks, Ray would’ve bet good money on it. Well, life on the road had its dangers, and every performer got their share of whacked-out fans. You knew you’d hit the bigtime when the death threats started, right?
“Fuck ‘em,” said Joe. “They want to leave, that’s their problem. They want to fight, hey, that’s good energy, that’s real.”
“What if we joined forces, as it were?” Ben suggested. “Perform a few numbers together. It might help to set a tone of collaboration and openness to experimentation.”
“What d’you want us to do?” Ray asked dubiously. “Sing the theme from Rawhide?”
Pipefitter laughed; so did Tracy. Joe snorted disgustedly. Ben just raised his eyebrows inquiringly.
“I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that one,” he said. “Though perhaps if you hum a few bars. . . ?”
Ox actually started picking out the bass line, until Joe kicked over a folding chair.
“We are not singing fucking Rawhide. Or fucking whistling Dixie. We don’t do country.”
“That’s all right, sugar, we’re flexible, we do western, too,” Tracy said, her slight twang suddenly thickening into something straight out of The Dukes of Hazzard. That might actually have won her points with Joe, who respected people with the guts to tell him fuck you, if Ray could’ve held back his own snort of laughter.
Joe rounded on him, teeth bared; Ray took an instinctive step back, knocked into a folding chair and nearly went over backwards.
“Well, then, perhaps we could stretch to a little rock ‘n’ roll,” said Ben mildly. He struck up a chord progression in classic 50s teen ballad style, C and D and E minor and back to C—and oh shit, Ray twigged a second before Ben started picking out the melody to Blue Tattoo.
Joe lunged at him. Ray was quick enough to grab him, bear-hugging him from behind, before he could get his hands on Ben’s guitar. Joe made a noise that was hallway between a growl and a yell, then spat in Ben’s face.
Ben could’ve been a statue for how little he reacted. He didn’t even move to wipe his face, just stood there, calm as a cucumber, left hand still curled around the neck of the guitar, looking Joe straight in the face. For a wild second, Ray wanted to see what would happen if Joe took a swing at Ben. Because for all Ben’s mild manners, his body language was suddenly broadcasting combat readiness loud and clear.
Maybe Joe saw it, too, although he wasn’t usually big on weighing the odds before starting a fight.
“Stupid fucking pansy-ass cunts,” he snarled as he shook Ray off and grabbed his own guitar off the counter. “And you can fucking get your worthless ass on a bus back to Chicago," he told Ray. "Don’t let me see you again.”
He shoved past Ray and slammed out of the room. His boots made the rickety stairs rattle all the way down; the bang of the outer door shook the floor under their feet.
Pipefitter was the one who twitched first. “Well, now we’re fucked. What the fuck did you want to go and do that for?”
“I’m truly sorry,” said Ben. “I shouldn’t have. . .descended into pettiness. It’s rarely helpful.”
“Nah, that’s okay.” Ray waved away the apology. “He was asking for it. Hell, you’d picked a different song, he might’ve thought it was funny.”
“Oh, I. . .yes, I see,” said Ben, and he sounded like he really did get it. Which, if he knew Hard Core Logo well enough to play one of their rarer songs from memory, maybe he did understand. Would’ve been nice if he’d bought a clue a couple of minutes earlier, though, because now Ray was royally fucked.
Still, Ray told him, “Never mind. It’s not your fault Joe’s a dick,” because it wasn’t, really.
“He did give us to understand as much,” said Ben.
Pipe glared at them both, but Ray couldn’t help grinning at Ben's undercover sense of humor. It was like they were on the same wavelength.
“Listen, boys,” Tracy said, back in social-smoother-over mode. “I’m real sorry about this whole mix-up. I don’t know what you want to do. . .”
“Without Joe? Not a lot we can do," said Ray. "Pack up and go home.”
And refund the money for this gig, Mulligan gets a little more disgusted with us and maybe finally calls it quits. Go sleep in the van, except Joe probably took it, and even if he didn’t, I can’t go near him until he makes the first move. Calls me back into the fold. Fucking Christ. Just thinking about it made Ray exhausted.
“You’re welcome to play with us,” Tracy offered.
"Seriously?" Ray asked.
“Sure. We’ve just about got time to run through most of the set, it’s mostly not too fancy, chord-wise. ‘Course, that doesn’t solve the problem about your fans, but. . .”
“But at least we don’t break our contract,” said Ray, because someone had to point out just how big a favor this was she was offering them.
“Indeed,” Ben agreed.
“Ox, Pipe, you up for a change of pace?” Ray asked.
Pipe shrugged grudgingly. Oxenberger nodded with actual enthusiasm. Maybe not so surprising; Oxenberger actually listened to country voluntarily. Hell, in his fringed vest and cowboy hat, he looked more like Tracy and Ben’s crew than like Hard Core Logo.
“Okay, we’re in,” said Ray.
“Glad to have you,” Tracy replied, with a smile like she actually meant it.
“And as for your fans, well, obviously Mr. Dick is irreplaceable,” said Ben, completely straight-faced, but catching Ray’s eye like they were sharing a private joke, just the two of them. Like they were old friends instead of total strangers. “But if the services of another guitarist would make it possible for you to perform your own repertoire, I’m a quick study, if I do say so myself.”
Behind Ben’s back, Pipefitter rolled his eyes, but kept his mouth shut. Some of Ben and Tracy’s crew looked dubious, and the burly, bearded geezer looked like he was finding this whole thing hilarious, but they all seemed to be willing to let their bosses call the shots.
“Even more than another guitar, we need a lead singer,” Ray said. “But you’re not just gonna. . .” He made a vague hand gesture, meaning learn the lyrics in the next half hour, step into Joe Dick’s shoes, walk out in front of our fans dressed like that, acting like that, and leave the stage alive.
“You can sing lead, Ray,” Oxenberger spoke up. “You know all the songs. Ben can join me on backup vocals. Easy enough.”
“Not the word I would’ve picked,” Ray muttered, but Ox wasn’t wrong. Ray did know the songs. That wasn’t the problem. Ox knew it; they all knew it. Joe had maybe crossed a line, walking out on them, but that was Joe. Ray singing Joe’s songs without him? Something else entirely.
“Sure, why not?” he said. “What’ve we got to lose?"
* * *
“Hey, kids, uh, if you came here tonight to see Hard Core Logo, first of all, thanks for coming. So, the thing is, uh, Joe couldn’t be here tonight, but we’re gonna play you some songs with the help of our new friend, Ben, here.”
Ray was hysterically tempted to add: On the bass, Derek Smalls. He wrote this. Because never mind The Blues Brothers, now they were into Spinal Tap territory. Only Ray wasn’t a founding member of Hard Core Logo, and he didn’t have a friendship with Joe stretching back to grade school to worry about. He didn’t even like punk that much, to be honest.
And although Ben was about as far from a punk rocker as it was possible to get, it was clear from their micro-rehearsal that he was a damned good musician. Miles better than Ray, not that that was saying much, even now. Ben could improv chords and harmonies by ear. Sing through a song for him once and he had the tune and lyrics down cold. He had a nice voice, rich and warm when he blended with Tracy on their own stuff, but once he got it into his head that the key to punk was to basically shout into the mic, he was surprisingly good at that, too. The one problem, besides his clean-cut looks, was he was weirdly awkward about swearing. Fortunately, most of the backup lines didn’t actually involve cursewords, and Ray told him he could just yell rhythmically with no consonants on Who the Hell You Think You Are, so that was okay.
He wasn’t Joe Dick or Billy Tallent, but then, hey! neither was Ray, and anyway, here they were, slamming out the intro to Something’s Gonna Die Tonight. When the verse started, Ray almost forgot to sing, too used to that not being his job, but he caught himself only a beat late and screamed out the lyrics, adrenaline-hoarse, with Ben and Ox laying down the chords under him like a rock-solid roller-coaster rail, Pipe drumming like he was on a mission to drown them out, or maybe bring the roof down, all of them yelling together, “Die tonight!”
They hit the first guitar bridge and sailed right through—nothing fancy there, nothing Ray couldn’t handle. He grinned at Oxenberger, who gave him a Not dead yet! half-smile back. Then he turned the other way, to Ben, who was standing straight and still and solemn like he was singing in a church choir instead of playing pretty damn credible punk guitar. Ben’s eyes met his, corners crinkling in a barely-there smile, and held the contact as Ray swaggered up almost nose to nose with him, shouting the verse in his face:
“Well there ain't no use in tryin' to talk
It's been this way baby, since the Rock of Ages
When it rolled down the hill and comes to a stop. . .”
He wanted to share that good, giddy feeling bubbling up inside him, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to spit at Ben like Joe would do; he wasn't Joe, and Ben probably wouldn’t take it the right way. So Ray settled for getting right up close and personal, leaning in over his guitar, and Ben leaned right back, close enough to kiss. Which was another thing Joe sometimes did on stage, though never to Ray; another thing Ben probably wouldn’t thank him for. Even so, Ray was tempted for a wild moment, electrified by the music and the way Ben was grinning back at him now. Nose to nose, they screamed “Die tonight!” at each other, and then Ben shook his curly head like Paul McCartney, 1964 vintage, and Ray barely managed not to fall over laughing.
He finished up the song with a final guitar flourish. Ears ringing in the aftershock of all that noise, he straightened up and squinted out at the audience.
There was some scattered applause and a couple of boos and a lot of muttering and shuffling. Then somebody close to the stage yelled “Who the hell are you jokers?” and somebody else yelled “Fuck you!”—at the first guy, or at the band, Ray couldn’t tell.
A bottle smashed at Ray’s feet. Beside him, he felt Ben shift into that calm-but-combat-ready mode.
“We love you, too!” Ray yelled, giving the audience the finger with both hands, and then attacked the opening to Who the Hell You Think You Are, hard and fast. Through the glare of the lights, he saw some movement in the audience—the club’s bouncers doing their thing, maybe. Nothing else came flying at the stage, anyway.
The first time Hard Core Logo (and friends) hit the lyric, “Who the hell you think you are?” Ray heard a couple of people laugh. He breathed a mental sigh of relief while yelling about valet parking and hookers and glasses of port at the top of his voice. Audience with a sense of humor; they might just make it through the night in once piece, after all.
By the time they were halfway through their shortened set, probably half of the ripped-shirts-and-pierced-tongues set had walked out in disgust, and about half of the cowboy-hats-and-hairspray crowd were squirming and coughing restlessly. But the other half of the audience was actually kind of a little bit into it.
On a whim, Ray gathered Ox and Ben to him and told them, “Blue Tattoo,” although it wasn’t on the set list and they hadn’t practiced it with Ben. They both gave him surprised looks, but Ray just punched Ben on the shoulder and said, “You take this one.”
Ben blinked at him. “You want—you’re sure?”
“You know it, right?” Ray asked, grinning a challenge at him. and Ben didn’t deny it.
So Ray stepped back to give Pipefitter the heads-up, leaving the center mic open for Ben. Who, pro that he was, strode confidently up to it like this had been the plan all along. He nodded to Ray, who struck up the intro with Pipe and Ox, but Ben didn’t pick up his own guitar. Instead, he cradled the mic in both hands, leaned in like he was making love to it, and opened his mouth to sing.
“It hurt so bad when you got it
It went back to your head and drove you insane
But now that it's forgotten
And you can go on without any pain. . .”
Ben’s voice was such a shock, Ray nearly fumbled the chords. This wasn’t punk, or country, or some unholy cross-breed of the two. Ben was singing the melody straight-up, but with a sound so haunted and full of yearning it made Ray shiver. The way Joe sang this song—which he didn’t do often—it was full of feeling, all right, but the feeling was 100% anger. Which, fine, whatever, Joe’s business, but. . .hearing Ben sing it like the brokenheart-lovesong it should’ve been made Ray wish he’d ever heard Joe sing it back in the days of Billy Tallent. Before everything went to shit.
"A blue tattoo on your shoulder
In the shape of a heart in the middle of my name
It's how I remember
All of the bad things you couldn't change
A blue tattoo
A blue tattoo on your shoulder
A blue tattoo
In the shape of a heart. . ."
Ray drifted back to Pipe’s drum rig, nodded in Ben’s direction, and mouthed Slow down—he didn’t trust Pipe to get his drift through body language alone. Hell, he wasn’t sure Pipe would take a direct order from him, either, but he did, easing the tempo down a notch with Ray and Ox along for the ride. Slow, slow and aching into the second verse, with the drums still just as insistent, giving it that edge of harshness under Ben’s soaring sorrow.
When they hit the second chorus, Ray realized that the guitar solo was coming up and it was his. Shit. The few times they’d played Blue Tattoo in the past, Joe had taken the solo himself, though Ray knew it had been Billy’s originally. Ray wasn’t half the guitarist Billy had been, and he knew better than to argue with Joe over this even if he'd given a shit—but here and now, there was no Billy. No Joe, either. Only Ray, doing his damndest to make his axe wail with feeling to match Ben’s.
Half-blind with the stage lights, he saw Ox, on the far side of the stage, smiling like an angel and nodding, his long hair swaying in time to the music. Saw Ben, shining in the white-purple-blue lights, watching him. Holding out his hand, palm up, drawing Ray to his side. Ray went.
“A blue tattoo on my shoulder,” Ben murmured, sweet and low and hopeless, peeking sideways through his eyelashes at Ray as they both bent over the mic.
“In the shape of the world in the middle of your name
It's how I remember
All the good things you took to your grave.”
Pipe dropped the drums down to a whisper, brush on hide, as Ray joined Ben on the last chorus.
“A blue tattoo
A blue tattoo on your shoulder
A blue tattoo
In the shape of a heart.”
The audience was quiet as the last reverb of guitar and bass died away. Then someone whistled, and the applause started, louder and longer than anything they’d gotten yet tonight.
Ray grinned at Ben, who smiled back, a little wild-eyed, like he’d just stepped off a really good roller coaster.
As the applause continued, Oxenberger drifted over and murmured in Ray’s ear, “Joe’s gonna kill you.”
* * *
“He took the fucking van,” Pipefitter announced. “The fucker took the goddamned fucking van.”
Ray staggered down the last of the stairs behind him and plonked down the end of the drum case he was carrying. Ben eased the other end to the pavement more gently as Ray looked up and down the street, like maybe he was hoping his drummer had suddenly developed a case of selective blindness. As advertised, the street was deserted, except for the swanky white RV that Ben and Tracy’s roadies were loading their own gear into. No gunmetal-grey deathtrap junkheap on wheels in sight.
“Big surprise,” said Ray, hoping to head off Pipe’s possible tantrum at the pass. For himself, he was pretty fucking PO’ed, yes, because stranded in the ass-end of Calgary at two in the fucking morning with their entire stage rig? Not a funny joke, thank you very fucking kindly, Joe. But at the same time, he was relieved, because Joe taking the van to screw them over was one thing. Joe vanishing into the night alone, leaving everything behind. . .that would've been something to seriously worry about. “Okay, look, just bring the rest of the stuff down here so they can close up. We’ll, uh. . .we’ll call a cab or something. Couple of cabs. Go to a motel. Sort it out in the morning.”
Pipe glared at him, his lower lip stuck out and quivering like a kid’s, but trudged back up the stairs without another word. He was always happier with clear, firm instructions. How the hell he’d ended up in the punk scene, Ray had no idea.
“We could help you move your gear,” Ben offered. “There’s room in our van.”
“Don’t sweat it, we’ll be fine,” Ray said, because seriously, there were only so many favors you could ask of a bunch of total strangers, and they’d used up their quota already. He probably had enough cash in his pocket for two cabfares, assuming they could get two cabs out here at this hour, and assuming the drivers would be willing to haul a load of amps and instruments. Covering a motel room might be harder, but he’d worry about that when they got there.
“It’s no trouble,” Ben said. He picked up the damn drum case by himself and headed for the van. Guy was pretty damn strong, but the box was an awkward load for one; Ray scrambled after him to take one end.
“Seriously,” Ray said. “You don’t have to—I mean, not that we wouldn’t appreciate it, but it’s late, long day, you’ve already—”
“We’ll be glad to lend a hand,” Ben said. The roadies gave him confused looks, and one of the musicians standing near the RV frowned like he maybe wanted to argue, but the white-bearded old guitarist just snorted a laugh and shook his head.
“Just roll with it, son, and we’ll all get to bed sooner,” he said. Ray wasn’t totally clear whether the guy was talking to the roadie or to him, but either way, he figured he might as well take the advice, stop arguing with the nice man who wanted to make his night a whole hell of a lot less painful, and help get the whole business wrapped up as fast as possible.
With Ben helping—and a couple of the other musicians pitched in, too—Hard Core Logo got their gear loaded in good time. Ray was a little worried about what Tracy would think about Ben’s unilateral decision to use their RV as a taxi service for desperate punks, but when she came downstairs and saw a band’s worth of extra equipment going into her van, she and Ben had one of those silent conversations with just their eyes like Ray’s parents used to. Then Ben headed back upstairs for another load of gear, and Tracy came over to Ray with a smile like there was nothing hinky about any of this.
She dug in her purse and held out a wad of bills to him. “Your share of the door.”
“You sure?” he asked.
“You played. And I’ve got to say, Ben moonlighting in a punk band? You can’t put a price tag on a story like that. I just wish we had pictures.”
Her smile was real, and like with Ben, Ray had a feeling she wouldn't take no for an answer. And Hard Core Logo needed the cash, bad, which was obvious to everyone here, so there wasn’t a lot of point in pretending it wasn’t true.
“Fair enough.” He riffle-counted the cash, just to know what he had; it wasn't like he was going to argue about the amount. At least now he didn’t have to worry about covering a motel room. “Listen, thanks. For everything. You’re good people.”
She nodded acknowledgement. “We’ve all been down on our luck before. C’mon, let’s get rollin’.”
They all piled out at the hotel where the country singers were staying, which was not the fleabag motel Ray would’ve looked for, but wasn’t the Ritz, either. Ben had a chat with the guy working the reception desk, and the next thing Ray knew, they were bucket-brigading all of Hard Core Logo’s crap up to a room with two queen-sized beds and just about enough floor space for all the instruments and amps.
By this time it had to be close to three in the morning, but apparently country musicians weren’t completely square, because they all crammed in there, shooting the shit and noodling on guitars and poking each other in the eye with stray elbows, and then a couple of bottles were being passed around, and the air was thick with cigarette smoke. Ray saw Ben wince and cough and wondered how the hell he’d managed to tour with these guys for years without building up a tolerance, but he put out his own butt and opened the window and smiled when Ben maneuvered himself over to it.
“Don’t know how any of us have any voices left at all,” Ray said.
Ben grunted “Mm,” in a tone that meant I’m too polite to agree with you out loud. He fiddled with the tuning on the guitar he was holding. “Oh, I meant to ask you, that riff you played on the second verse of Rock ‘n’ Roll is Fat and Ugly. . .”
Five minutes later, Ray had excavated his own battered acoustic and they were testing out different riffs, bent close over their guitars so they could hear each other over the racket everyone else was making.
“What if you tried. . . ?”
“No, listen, this sounds better anyway, it’s more. . .wail-y. Or it would on an electric, anyway.”
“Wail-y? I’m not familiar with—”
“You know what I mean, you just don’t want to admit it sounds better this way. . .”
Ray had no idea what time it was when Tracy stood up, saying, “This gal’s getting herself some sleep. Night-night, boys.”
Ben just looked up long enough to give her a nod, and then bent his head again to hear what he was playing. Ray was surprised Ben didn’t turn in with her, but hey, maybe he was the night owl of the couple. Or maybe he just couldn’t stand to go to bed until he’d come up with a version of this damned thing that he liked and that Ray could actually finger without screwing up.
“I think you’ll find if you use an inverted B minor—” he began.
“Yeah, yeah, inversion, whatever, look just run through it again, let me see. . .”
Ben obligingly played through his latest suggestion in slo-mo with Ray looking over his shoulder so he could see what Ben’s hands were doing from right-way-around. Then Ray made him go through it again, and again, and then Ray tried it himself on his own guitar—fuck, his fingers just did not want to go that way, and anyway he could barely hear if he was doing it right.
At some point, someone said something about another bottle, and someone said something about hash browns, but Ray wasn’t paying attention because he almost had the damned transition down, and then when he looked up, everyone else had fucked off somewhere, and it was just him and Ben sitting on the floor at godawful-late o'clock.
Feeling suddenly self-conscious, he put his guitar aside and clambered to his feet; Ben stood, too.
“Jeez, it’s late.” He stretched his arms and cracked his neck. “Look, I, uh, this has been fun, but I don’t want to keep you from your, you know, beauty rest. Not to mention your gorgeous girl.”
“That’s quite all right. I don’t need much sleep, and I can nap in the van if need be," Ben said, then added hastily, "But if you want to get to bed—that is, I presume you’ll also need to make an early start tomorrow morning—”
“Nah, it’s fine," said Ray. "I go to bed now, I’ll just get woken up when Pipe and Ox crash in here after they’re done doing whatever the hell they’re doing. Anyway, it’s not like we’ve got a schedule to keep. Or, okay, we did, but until Joe turns up, and who the hell knows when that will be, or if. . .” He sat down heavily on the nearer bed. Just thinking about Joe sucked all the good energy right out of him. Fucking Joe.
“Do you think—forgive me, I don’t mean to pry. . .”
Ray gave Ben a go-ahead wave.
“Will he make good on his threat? Or was it simply a posture?”
“A what?”
“A front. An act. A—”
“Okay, I got the picture,” Ray interrupted, although he was secretly a little curious how many different synonyms the guy could come up with. “Is Joe gonna throw me out of the band? I dunno. Probably not. I mean, he threatens to do it, like, every month, give or take. Usually it blows over pretty fast. But. . .” He grimaced, then shrugged. “Usually it’s about some bullshit thing.”
“Rather than concrete. . .defiance?” Ben suggested.
“Yeah.” Ray sighed. “If I knew what was good for me, I’d call his bluff. Walk away.”
“You sound like you have a clear grasp of your own best interests,” said Ben, propping his guitar against the end of the bed and then sitting down beside Ray.
“Yeah, sure, but it ain’t that simple. I owe them. Joe especially. And, not to sound like I’m full of myself, but they need me to keep the wheels from falling off, you know?”
“Mm.” This time it sounded more like I’m too polite to disagree with you out loud.
"The thing is, it sucks to be Joe, too. This band, it’s his one thing. The only thing he loves. But to keep it alive, he’s gotta put up with me.”
“Are you so difficult to put up with?” Ben asked. “Admittedly, I haven’t known you long, but you don’t seem particularly horrible to me.”
It wasn't even much of a compliment, but Ray couldn't help smiling.
“I don’t know. Joe hates most people, and anyway. . .” He shrugged. “It’s not really so much that he hates me, I mean, not for who I am. It’s about who I’m not.”
“Billy Tallent,” Ben suggested.
“Billy fuckin’ Tallent,” Ray agreed. “Whole reason I’m in this band in the first place.”
“He was a founding member of Hard Core Logo, if I remember correctly.”
“Yeah, but how the hell do you know that?”
“I have a capacious memory for trivia,” Ben said, like it was something to be embarrassed about, like a case of crabs. Then he added, “No offense meant.”
Ray waved that away. “Nah, I’m impressed you know that much. Not your kind of music, and it’s not like Hard Core Logo was ever Elvis or anything.”
“Probably just as well. Few famous performers have survived their own fame unscathed. In any case, I know Mr. Tallent left Hard Core Logo to join Jenifur, but I’m afraid that’s the extent of my knowledge.”
“Well , so Billy and Joe, they didn’t just found the band, it was this whole, you know, childhood friends, started the band in their basement, partnership deal. They were tighter than tight. Or at least, so the story goes. And for a while Hard Core Logo were like, the kings of Canadian punk. Whatever that’s worth. Then it starts going south, I don’t know why. Maybe just because punk is pretty much dead by that point, or maybe Billy got fed up with Joe. . .being Joe. I dunno. Joe doesn’t talk about it. Drops hints sometimes, but mostly just to pick a fight. And Ox and Pipe, they’re pretty squirrely about telling tales on Joe most of the time, and when they do talk, hell, I can’t tell whether to believe any given word out of either of their mouths. All I know is, fall of 1990, there they are on tour, they stop off in Chicago, and Billy, God knows why, remembers he’s got cousins in Chicago, so he looks me up. Well, we’d never laid eyes on each other before, so the whole. . .” Ray gestured at his face. “That was kind of a hilarious surprise. And then, I don’t know, you know how sometimes when you’ve got something on your mind and no one to talk to, and you end up unloading it all on a stranger. . . ?”
“I’m familiar with the phenomenon,” said Ben, poker-faced but with his eyes all crinkled up in a hidden smile. Not laughing at Ray; inviting him to share the joke. So Ray grinned, and Ben let that smile loose on the rest of his face, and boy, Ben was handsome to begin with, but smiling, he was a fucking traffic hazard. And Tracy Jenkins was one hell of a lucky gal.
“But you were saying. . . ?” Ben prompted.
“Right, yeah, so me and Billy get to telling each other our sad life stories. He tells me how he wants to quit the band, the life is driving him nuts, Joe’s driving him nuts, and he wants some kind of stable career. But if he leaves, that’ll be the end of Hard Core Logo, and he says it’ll just kill Joe, because the band’s basically all he’s ever cared about. And I tell him how my wife divorced me and I’ve just lost my job. Well, or it lost me, something. I don’t know.” Ray sighed. “I was a cop. That’s what I always wanted to do, since I was a kid. But then. . .there was this case, cop got murdered, I was the officer on the scene, my first real homicide case. See, and his wife, she got convicted for it, death penalty. And I just. . .I was the one who arrested her, I bagged the evidence, I wrote up the report. I’m the first in a long chain that leads to this lady getting the needle. Her death is on me, you know?”
Ben nodded. “It’s a hard responsibility to bear,” he said, like he really did know.
“Yeah, and see. . .I’m not even totally sure she did it.” Freaky, how it was so easy to tell Ben what he’d never told a soul in his life. Something about the way he listened, like he believed you, like he wasn’t going to judge you and your secrets would be safe with him. “I mean, there wasn’t anyone else, she was there, the evidence. . .but I don’t know. It didn’t sit right with me. But there wasn’t anything I could do, and my partner, my Lieutenant, everyone says you did good, caught a cop-killer, now forget about it, move on. But I couldn’t forget about it, and I couldn’t fix it, and I just. . .I couldn’t keep doing the job, if I couldn’t trust that. . .that we were doing the right thing. That I was doing the right thing.”
Ben frowned. “It’s a difficult situation to face, when an institution that stands for justice and protection of the innocent fails to do so, and even obstructs justice, whether deliberately or simply through bureaucratic rigidity. For an individual to stand up to the institution he belongs to and believes in, to say This isn’t right. . .”
“You think I should’ve stayed and. . .I don’t know, tried to get the case re-opened? Looked into it on my own?”
“That’s not for me to judge. I wasn’t there.” Ben shook his head. “Besides. . .I’ve been in a very similar situation, and in the end, I, too, chose to walk away from what I felt I couldn’t fix. And like you, I still wonder what would have happened if I had stood my ground and fought. Whether it was really as hopeless as I thought. Whether I might have made a difference.”
“Yeah. I guess we’ll never know, huh?”
“Presumably not. And I suppose we’ll always wonder,” said Ben. “But I interrupted you. You were telling me how you came to join Hard Core Logo.”
“Right, so, there’s me, no job, no wife—that’s a whole ‘nother sad story, you don’t want to hear that right now—no prospects, unless maybe I can get some garage to take me as an auto mechanic, ’cause that’s about the only other thing I know how to do. And Billy, he says, Hey, you ever want to be a rock star?” Ray shrugged. “Well, I mean, sure, who didn’t?”
“I always imagined myself as Stan Rogers, but the principle’s the same. So, you took Billy’s place in the band. And Joe was satisfied with the arrangement?”
“Well . . .” Ray grimaced. “So, in the first place, we didn’t actually ask him. Billy just taught me some vocals, gave me some tips, and split. Took his best guitar, left me the rest. I showed up to the gig with my hand wrapped up in a bandage, said I’d broken it in a fight. See, because I couldn’t play guitar. Not a note.”
Ben raised his eyebrows in pantomime astonishment and Ray was struck with the fierce urge to show off for him—Here, over here, look at me! Not that his sorry life story was any way to impress the guy. . .but Ben did seem genuinely interested. Not just in the story; in him, in hearing what Ray had to say. Which was. . .he couldn’t remember the last time someone had felt that way about him. Maybe not since Stella stopped.
“So, I made it through the concert without fucking up too badly. Joe asked me what I’d been smoking, but he didn’t twig until the next day. Six hours on the road, he suddenly pulls over onto the shoulder, tells me to get out, socks me on the jaw. I told him he could have that one for free ‘cause I owed him, but anything else, he’d have to fight for. Pipe and Ox pretty much had to carry us back into the van, after. But we played the damn show that night. Me with my fake broken hand and both of us pretty much looking like hamburger. The crowd loved it.” Ray shrugged.
“And so you stayed. And evidently learned to play the guitar at some point.”
“Yeah. Got Oxenberger to show me the basics. Spent a lot of time in the back of the bus going, you know, E-A-B7, over and over. Got better eventually. But also—I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s real music, but on the other hand, if three guys are playing and the fourth guy’s just jumping up and down and shouting the lyrics, that can work. The trick is you got to commit to the attitude, right? Hundred percent. You look right, you feel right.”
“Stage presence.” Ben nodded. “That was the aspect of performing I struggled hardest to learn, myself. And I must admit, I’m still not entirely comfortable with it.”
“Could’ve fooled me. Out there, you owned the stage.”
“Thank you kindly,” said Ben with a smile that was weirdly shy for a guy as confident as he’d seemed up to now. “It does get easier with practice, and the generosity of our fans helps a great deal. And, of course, I’ve been privileged to learn the craft from Tracy.”
“Yeah, she’s got the whole stage presence thing down pat, huh?”
“She’s a natural performer,” Ben agreed. “And for her, performing is about connection, intimacy. With the audience, that is. That’s why we stick to smaller venues, despite, ah. . .”
“Despite the fact that you’re popular enough to be playing stadiums?”
“In essence, yes,” said Ben, like it was something to apologize for. “In any case, what I meant to say is, Tracy taught me to see performing as a way to connect with people, which makes the whole business of being on stage much more. . .manageable for me. And performing with her is a pleasure.”
“Yeah, it must be great, getting to make music with your girlfriend like that,” said Ray wistfully.
“Tracy’s not. . .that is, we’re not actually a couple.”
That was the craziest thing Ray'd heard in, well, at least since they'd gotten off the stage, but Ben looked totally serious. Didn't seem like the kind of thing he'd joke about, anyway.
“Not a—you sure could’ve fooled me.”
“That is the intent, yes. We decided some years ago that life would be simpler for both of us if there were a general impression that neither of us was, ah, romantically available.”
Ray nodded, remembering the way the fans had swarmed both Ben and Tracy after the show. All those eager hands reaching for them—eager for autographs, sure, but eager to touch, too. Ben with his arm around Tracy’s shoulders as she chatted and signed, both of them giving out gracious smiles with apparently endless patience.
“Okay, sure, I can see where a big, flashing Do Not Touch sign could come in handy. Still. . .it can’t be easy, keeping the alibi going. I mean, you guys get a lot of press, and fans can be worse than bloodhounds about that kind of shit. What do you do when you want to actually hook up with someone? Or, you know, date them?”
“Oh, if one of us wanted to pursue a romantic relationship, that would be a different story. Certainly, I would be the last to stand in Tracy’s way, if she wanted. . .though I don’t think it’s very. . .that is. . .I think, for the moment, she’s happy being Nobody’s Girl. As it were.”
Even Ray knew that song, it was one of her most famous hits, and the way she’d looked and sounded tonight, singing it on stage? Yeah, not really a surprise to find out she meant it personally.
“And you?” he asked, which was nosy and pushy and probably inappropriate to ask a guy he’d known for all of eight hours, but Ben didn’t take offense.
“Much the same, I suppose," he said slowly. "I. . .my experience of romance hasn’t been extensive, or. . .encouraging. I’m happier staying single.”
“What, forever? Uh, sorry, no offense, you should totally do whatever floats your boat. I just mean. . .if it were me, I’d be lonely.”
“Mm.” Apparently the mm thing was kind of a thing with Ben. Ray couldn't tell what he meant by it this time. Which was maybe the point. “To be honest, it hasn’t really come up.”
“Haven’t met anybody you wanted to date?”
“Not really.” All of a sudden, Ben was broadcasting I’m done with this topic on all channels, so Ray blurted out the first thing he could think of that was not at all related to Ben’s love life or lack thereof.
“So, uh, Stan—whoever, you know, you said, who you wanted to sing like?”
“Stan Rogers?”
“Yeah, him. What’d he play? Country?”
“Not as such.” Ben made like he didn’t notice Ray’s clumsy conversational ploy, but Ray could see his shoulders relax. “He was a Canadian folk singer. Of the singer-songwriter variety, that is, rather than the sort who sing historical folk songs. Though some of his songs were in the mold of nineteenth century whaling ballads and the like, and are often mistaken for authentic period songs. And then, on the other hand, many of his other songs capture a way of life that was fading when he wrote them, and even the 1960s count as history these days.”
“Well, so. . .what'd he sound like?” Ray asked.
Ben picked up his guitar and fiddled with the tuning. Then he looked over at the window, like he could see past the reflection of the lights and the beat-up furniture, like he was looking out into the dark at something a million miles away, and began to sing.
“Westward from the Davis Strait
'Tis there 'twas said to lie
The sea route to the Orient
For which so many died
Seeking gold and glory ,
Leaving weathered, broken bones
And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones
Ah, for just one time
I would take the Northwest Passage . . .”
There was that wild, yearning voice that Ray had heard from him on Blue Tattoo, and in snatches here and there when he was singing with Tracy. Only this here was stronger, wilder, lonelier. It was wind sweeping over frozen wastelands and mountain roots sunk deep in the earth and hearts cracking like ice in a spring thaw. Ben’s voice made Ray’s bones ache, made him want to reach out for. . .he didn’t even know what. It made him wish he could write music, so he could put feelings out in the air for other people to feel like this and maybe understand, somehow, without words.
“. . .And make a Northwest Passage to the sea,” Ben finished softly, not much more than a whisper of melody at the end, his eyes still fixed on that reflection-blanked window. They were both silent for a while, until Ben turned his head slowly back to look at Ray. Looking for a reaction, probably, although Ray couldn’t actually read his expression.
Ray cleared his throat, figuring he should say something nice, but instead, he found himself saying what he was actually thinking, which was, “Jesus, Ben, what the hell are you doing here?”
Ben blinked at him, looking bewildered and maybe also kind of hurt.
“Enjoying your company,” he said.
“Oh, no, hey, I didn’t mean, like, why are you here.” Ray gestured to himself, Ben, the room. “I just—look, you’re good at what you do, you and Tracy have a great sound, you look like you’re having fun up there together, you’re a perfectly-tuned music machine. But. . .if that’s the way you feel. . .” He shook his head. “Your heart’s not in it, is it?”
Ben gazed down at his lap as he stroked his thumb softly over the guitar strings.
“I suppose not. . .entirely,” he admitted quietly. “Not anymore.”
“How come?”
Ben shook his head. “I. . . I don’t know, it seems foolish. . .I love making music, and I’ve grown accustomed to the travel, performing, and Tracy’s a dear friend, but. . .”
“It ain’t your music.”
“No,” Ben agreed, sounding surprised. “It isn’t. Well, literally speaking, I've done a number of our arrangements and even written one or two of the songs myself, but you’re right. Tracy lives her music. I just play it.”
“So play me something, then. Something you wrote for you.”
Ben looked shocked, then looked away, out the window again. Ray cursed silently; he should’ve figured that was pushing too far, Hey, you’ve known me twelve hours, tell me a secret you’ve never shared with anybody.
“Sorry,” he said. “You don’t have to—”
But Ben plucked out an arpeggio, so Ray shut his mouth fast and listened.
The melody was simple and haunting, but it wove in and out of a tangle of counterpoint and funky, uneasy harmonies that made Ray want to reach out for. . .something. . .he couldn’t even say what. Ben sang, deep in his chest and lullaby-soft:
“Snow and snow stretching on
To kiss the starry sky
Stars and stars eternity away
Green veils dancing their own time their own way
Wind song keening for no one to hear
Snow and snow stretching on
Before we came after we’re gone
Rocks standing tall between snow and sky
Pointing the way
Someone was here
Snow and snow stretching on. . .”
The accompaniment thinned out to a single thread of melody, which wandered to an end in the middle of a phrase, ending without finding its way back to the root of the key but somehow sounding, not unfinished, just. . .not over. Ray blinked a couple of times to clear the stinging from his eyes.
“Wow. That was really great,” he said, wishing he could up with something less lame to say. “Thanks. I mean, I know—you don’t—well, thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” said Ben. He cocked his head in the direction of Ray’s guitar where it lay on the floor. “Would you return the favor?”
“What, sing something?”
“A song of yours.”
Ray blew out his breath. “Hell, I don’t write music. I barely play.”
“That’s not true,” Ben retorted. “You’re a fine musician.”
Ray bit back the urge to say, Not compared to you. Instead, he said, “I’ve never written anything. Never thought about it, honestly.”
“Fair enough,” said Ben. “But since we’re thinking about it now. . .what sort of music would you write, if you did write? If you didn’t have to play Joe’s music, or anyone else’s?”
“Jeez, I don’t know.” Ray rubbed the back of his neck as he tried to think seriously about it. “I guess. . .Punk has this great energy, but it’s angry, like, all the time. And so sometimes I think, okay, but what would it be like to sing about the stuff that doesn’t make you angry?”
“Like what?”
“Uh. . .I don’t know. . .like, smoking a cigarette outside in the sun on one of those early spring days where it’s warm, and you don’t have anywhere else to be, you can spend a few minutes enjoying your smoke and not freezing your ass off. Or, some stranger held the bus for me and then I didn’t have any change and he spotted me the fare, so hey, thanks, pal.”
Ben made another of those “Mm”s, but this one sounded approving and thoughtful. He struck up a standard blues chord progression, then raised his eyebrows at Ray until he picked up his own guitar.
Ray had to mess around a little before he figured out Ben was playing in G, because years doing this shit and he could hear the notes, but he still couldn’t translate directly from his ears to his fingers. Once Ray was in, Ben waited for the top of the sequence to cycle 'round, then sang,
“Hey stranger, thanks for lending me a dime to pay the bus fare
Hey stranger, thanks for lending me a dime to pay the bus fare
Thanks for giving me the time of day when I was heading nowhere.”
Ray grinned. “Hey, that’s pretty good for off the top of your head.”
Ben inclined his head in acknowledgement, the chords rolling along under his hands. “Now your turn.”
Discovering that he was more afraid of disappointing Ben than of embarrassing himself, Ray gave it a shot.
“Hey stranger, thanks for saving the show when my partner left me hanging.” His line had too many syllables to fit the music right, so he had to cram the last few words in fast, but Ben was smiling at him.
“Hey stranger, thanks for saving the show when my partner left me hanging
Thanks for giving it a go—uh—that’s some funky drum you’re banging.”
Which didn’t really make sense, but at least he’d hit both of the rhymes and made a complete sentence.
Ben took this as a cue to play rhythm section, and started tapping out the downbeats on the body of his guitar, then adding in counterpoint and fancy little syncopated riffs, while Ray kept the chords marching along. He was still looking expectantly at Ray, so Ray figured he was on the hook to make up the next verse, too.
“Hey stranger, thanks for sitting down with me to sing this song,” he sang, and Ben joined him on the repeat.
“Hey stranger, thanks for sitting down with me to sing this song.”
Ray nodded at Ben, who didn’t even blink, just came out with the next line.
“Hey stranger, when you sing with me, our voice is twice as strong.”
Ben cocked his head and Ray took a solo, riffing while Ben picked up the chords underneath. Eventually they wound down, ending the song with one of those cheesy frantic-strumming flourishes. Ray grinned at Ben, feeling that breathless kind of almost-high, like he’d just stepped off a rollercoaster. Ben’s smile broadened to match.
“Hey, you know, for something we pulled out of our asses, that didn’t totally suck,” said Ray.
“No, indeed,” Ben replied. “Which just goes to prove my point. You shouldn’t sell your own talents short.”
Ray stifled the impulse to protest that Ben had done like three quarters of the work, there. Instead, he said, “Hey, maybe we should take our show on the road. I mean, we’d make a great team, right? You bring the sad songs, I bring the happy songs.”
“Well, perhaps we could trade roles now and then,” Ben said, still smiling. “I’d like to think I have some happy songs in me as well.”
“Yeah, I’d like to think that too,” said Ray.
“And then, we could also write some songs together. We have a knack for it already, after all.”
“Yeah, teamwork, that’s the ticket. Music and lyrics, melody and harmony, guitar and vocals. . .”
“It doesn’t have to be one or the other, surely?” Ben asked. “Why not two guitars, two voices?”
“You and me,” Ray agreed. “Wouldn’t that be something? Ben and Ray’s Excellent Experiment.”
“What kind of experiment is that, now?” asked Tracy from the doorway. Ray jumped a foot. Ben, though naturally less twitchy, clutched his guitar like he’d been caught with stolen goods, before relaxing again.
“We were just joking around,” said Ray hastily. “It’s the name of our make-believe band.” He strummed a couple of random chords, then made a little ta-da! gesture with his right hand.
“Ray was telling me about the sort of music he’d like to write, if he were no longer with Hard Core Logo,” Ben said. “We’ve been having a bit of a jam session, trying out a few ideas. Ray turns out to be a man of hidden talents, in addition to the ones we saw him display earlier this evening.”
“Is that so?" She turned her playful smile on Ray. "Have you seduced him into going punk yet? After tonight's triumphant debut?”
“Nah, no way, I don’t even want to play the stuff myself, why would I, uh, try to convert anybody else?” said Ray. “Anyway, I wouldn’t—I mean, we were just kidding around.”
“Quite so,” Ben agreed, easy as anything. “Although I do think you would do well to seriously consider leaving Hard Core Logo and striking out in a direction more conducive to your wellbeing, Ray.”
Ray shook his head sharply. “I told you, I can’t do that to Joe. I know, he’s an asshole, but. . .I don’t know, that’s not a reason to kill somebody’s dream.”
“But you are killing somebody’s dream by staying, aren’t you? Your own?”
“You make it sound so simple, but it. . .it’s just not.”
“So, how’s it complicated?” Like Ben earlier, Tracy sounded like she genuinely wanted to know.
“Well, for one thing, even if I decide, okay, fine, Joe can go fuck himself, there’s Pipe and Ox. They’re decent guys, they’ve been good to me. If Hard Core Logo goes belly-up, they don’t have a lot of options.”
“You sure about that, now?” asked Tracy.
Ray thought about it. “Well. . .Pipe could probably find another gig if he had to. I mean, every band needs a drummer. Oxenberger, though. . .Hey, I don’t suppose you’re in the market for another bassist?” he asked, only mostly joking.
“Hm, I could be, at that,” said Tracy. She sounded like she actually meant it.
“Seriously? He writes songs, too, and he actually likes country-western. And he’s pretty chill, uh, as long as he stays on his meds.”
“He’d be welcome to come talk to me, at least, if he seriously wanted to switch over to country," she said. "If we didn’t have a place for him, there’s plenty of folks I could put him in touch with. Other bands, our agent.”
“There are options,” said Ben. “Particularly if one has friends willing to lend a hand.”
“For that matter, you could invite them to join your new band,” Tracy suggested.
“Nah, that—quitting is bad enough, but stealing Joe’s whole band out from under him? That’d be a pretty shitty thing to do.”
Tracy patted him on the shoulder, shaking her head. “Ray, darlin’, take it from me, ‘cause I learned this the hard way. You want to stick by your friends, help the people who helped you through the hard times, but sometimes, you care so much and you try so hard that you don’t even notice you’re all strangling each other to death, trying to hang on. When I first got my start, back before I met Ben, I was married to a songwriter. He wrote my tunes, wrote The Tune, my first hit. And my first manager, George, he put out my first CD, he made me famous. They loved me, I loved them. We stuck by each other. Even when things went sour with me and Dwight, I couldn’t cut him loose, not all the way, not for years. Even when George insisted on booking me into these huge arenas where I couldn’t see the audience, couldn’t feel the connection, and I felt pressured and stressed out all the time. I couldn’t tell him no. Until things got so bad that George killed a man and then tried to kill me."
Ray did a double-take at that, which Tracy acknowledged with a wry smile.
"Thank God, Ben stopped him; that was how we met. But that was when I realized: love will take you only just so far. And when love starts feeling like a trap, then it ain’t love any more, and it ain’t doing anybody a speck of good, and you got to free yourself from that trap before it kills you. Even if it feels like you’re leaving someone else behind.”
Ben sang softly,
“I can open the door,
But you got to walk yourself free
Only you can save you, darlin’
Only one I can save is me.”
Ray recognized the song as one Tracy had sung in the concert.
“I’m writin' my own songs, now,” said Tracy. “I still got my friends, and I couldn’t do this alone, but I’m never gonna let myself get back into that place where there’s someone I couldn’t do it without.”
Ben frowned, but wiped the expression off his face as Tracy looked over at him.
“Not even you, Sweetheart,” she told him. “And I wish to heck you’d realize that.”
“I do—I mean—I’d never try to hold you down, or hold you back,” he stammered.
“No, but you think it’s your job to hold me up.” She shook her head, giving him a smile that was about half-and-half affectionate and apologetic. “And I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Ben. More than that, it’s been a joy to work with you. But. . .I see that look you get, sometimes, when you think I can’t see you. Took me a while to recognize it, but that’s the look I used to see in my mirror, back when.”
Ben held up his hands like he wanted to deny it, but all he said was, “Tracy. . .”
“Ben. Honey.” She took his hands; he sat frozen like a statue. “Can you look me in the eye and tell me you’re still happy singing my music? Being my pretend-boyfriend? That that’s what you want to do for the rest of your life?”
They looked into each other’s eyes for what seemed like a long time, and maybe they’d never been a couple, but they were doing that married-people silent-conversation thing again.
Finally, Ben dropped his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“Don’t apologize. You got nothing to be sorry for. We had eight great years, we made good music together. I don’t regret one bit of it. Do you?”
He shook his head, still looking down at his knees.
She took hold of his chin and tipped his face up so their eyes met again.
“You do what you need to do, Ben.”
She kissed him on the forehead, lovingly, the way you’d kiss a kid goodnight. He didn't move when she let go of him.
“It’s Joe’s music, isn’t it?” she asked Ray. “He writes the tunes?”
“Uh, yeah, mostly,” Ray answered, startled to suddenly be part of the conversation again.
“Then if you go, he’ll still have the important thing. He can make it without you. If he wants to.”
He tried not to hear that like a death sentence.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, but his heart wasn’t in the sarcasm.
“Well, I’m off to bed. Got an early start tomorrow.” Tracy opened the door but then turned back. “Ben. . .you know there’s a place for you on that bus, long as you want it. But. . .”
“Thank you kindly,” he said, raising his eyes to hers. “But if I’m not there by 7:30, don’t wait for me.”
“Understood, darlin’,” she said, and closed the door behind her.
“Well, uh. . .” said Ray into the stunned silence that followed. “I guess she told us.”
“I suppose she did,” said Ben.
“Listen, just because she said. . .I mean, you don’t have to. . .we were just spitballing, it wasn’t anything. . .”
Ben picked up his guitar, noodled his way through a few chord changes, then seemed to find something he liked and began to strum, low and melancholy at first, but then he picked the tempo up a notch, and the rhythm got bouncier, and it was still in a minor key but suddenly it sounded a lot more. . .hopeful.
He hummed a melody line, feeling his way through at first, and then a second time through, more confidently. By the time he started in the third time, Ray was humming along.