Page 32 of Rock Bottom

I realized I’d been quiet for an awkwardly long amount of time and had no idea how to come back from it, so I reached for my guitar, swinging it over my lap. It’d always been easier to fill silence with music than words. “So, music,” I started, strumming the strings. “What do you like? Aside from After Atom, I mean.”

“Hmm.” He pressed his lips into a thin line and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “I guess I like a little of everything.”

I’d always felt like that was a cop-out answer, the sort people gave when they thought their real answer was too controversial, so I pressed him harder. “C’mon. Give me a song. An artist. Anything.”

He thought for a minute before saying, “How about Nirvana?”

I made some quick adjustments before playing the first few bars to “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, a song I must’ve played a thousand times just like every other guitarist teenage boy living in a post-grunge world. I worked my way through the first verse and the chorus once before ending the song to applause from Oscar.

“That was amazing!” he said, still clapping.

I gave an awkward smile. “I’m no Kurt Cobain, that’s for sure.”

“Not to speak ill of the dead, but I think you’re better than he ever was,” Oscar said.

I shifted in my seat, not sure what to say to that. It always felt weird to be compared to other singers who’d come before me, especially genre-defying and barrier-shattering greats like Kobain. Whatever his personal faults were, there was nobody alive that could argue the guy hadn’t changed the rock scene forever. If I was any good at all, it was only because I’d learned to walk in the shadow of greater musicians than myself.

But explaining all that to someone like Oscar felt like too much, so I just waved him on. “C’mon. Another song.”

Over the next half hour, we worked our way through a catalogue of nearly every early 2000s rock band he could think of and a few he didn’t know. We turned it into a game where I’d play a few bars and try to stump him. It was a game I’d played often with Jake and Gabe after practice, except whenever we guessed wrong, we had to drink. Playing it now with Oscar left me with a strange mix of homesickness and sadness. I’d never be able to play that game with them again if I wanted to stay sober. We’d bonded over dozens of such drinking games, but I’d never be able to play them again. What would we do instead?

When I really thought about it, so much of my life revolved around drinking and drugs that I wasn’t sure what I’d do with myself when I was sober. Every after party was going to have both alcohol and pills just lying around. Everybody else would be doing it. Did people really expect me to turn into a buzzkill overnight? How was I supposed to have fun if I couldn’t indulge just a little?

Maybe I could. Everyone else did and nobody got on their case for being a fucking addict. Just a couple of drinks, a little pot, a couple pills to bring me back up after the booze made me hit rock bottom.

I just had to learn to control myself and then I could do whatever I wanted. That was the difference between a casual user and an addict. Control.

“Dante?” Oscar frowned. “You okay?”

I realized I’d stopped playing, too consumed by my thoughts. I’d been wondering how many shots I could handle before it was too many. Was it three? Four? Nobody did just one. I’d look like a lightweight if I stopped after just one.

I shook my head. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just…tired.” I turned my head to look at the clock. Three forty-five. Wait a minute. I set the guitar aside with a frown. It can’t be three forty-five. The kettle hasn’t gone off yet, which means Church hasn’t made his afternoon tea. He never misses his tea. The sky could be on fire and Christ himself could be outside declaring tea a sin and Church would be defiantly putting that kettle on to go off at three-thirty sharp.

Something was wrong.

“What’s wrong?” Oscar asked as I stood.

“Church hasn’t made his afternoon tea.”

He shrugged. “So?”

“So he always makes his afternoon tea at three thirty. You can set your watch to it.”

“Oh, shit.” Oscar glanced down at his phone and shot to his feet. “My shift was over fifteen minutes ago. I’d better get off the clock or the cleaning company is going to fire me. I can still hang out, though. If you want.”

“I think it’s best if you didn’t today,” I said and walked him to the ladder. I didn’t want to be rude, but if something was wrong, it would be better if Oscar were out of harm’s way. “We’ll chat tomorrow, okay?”

“Oh. Okay. See you then?”

“Yeah, later, Oscar.”

I followed him to the door, half expecting to find Church on the porch with his tea and a book, but he wasn’t there. He wasn’t in the kitchen either. I checked the porch, but it was empty too, and there was no sign of him in the trees walking the perimeter.

Maybe he’s in his room. I approached the closed door and pressed my ear to it, stomach fluttering with nerves. It was silent on the other side, so I knocked. “Church?”

No answer.

What if something bad had happened to him? Suddenly, all I could picture was my big, strong hulk of a man lying in a pool of blood.

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