Page 10 of Crazy Love
I shake my head, because there’s no sense in even responding to that. We’re not going to fire and recruit another bass guitarist in just over five hours in the middle of the night, and that’s even supposing I was willing to cut Knox loose.
“We approach her,” Joel insists. “It wouldn’t hurt to sound her out.”
“Are you fucking for real? She’s in the band we’re competing against.”
“Not if she accepts the offer.”
“And if she doesn’t we’re going to look fucking desperate. Callahan gets one whiff that we’ve issues, and we’re toast.”
A gruesome smile spreads across Joel’s handsome mug, because unfortunately, I’ve just acknowledged that we have a problem. Knox is a problem. He’s always been a problem, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to give up on him. I don’t give up on my friends, not ever.
“She’ll jump, Nate. She wants that deal. You can see it in her. She knows full well that Jessie’s only doing this to get back at Dane, and the other bitch is living in cloud cuckoo land. Come on, admit it, her talents are wasted on them. With us, she could fly to the moon and back. We’d all be on the same page, completely committed.”
I’m going to need committing if this conversation goes on much longer.
“What you’re saying is all very poetic, Joel, but it ain’t happening. There is no way in hell I’m asking Loveday Trevaskis to join us. Sure, I’d love to have her talent on the team, but Paradise Kiss doesn’t need two bassists, and I’m not letting Knox go. For fuck’s sake, I made a promise to his dying mum.”
“The fuck you did.”
“I swore I’d look out for him.”
Joel wasn’t there the night Mrs. Knox passed away—terminal cancer. She’d had it as long as I’d known her. I was the one who rode with Knox to the hospital, the one who sat by her in that sad, overheated, little room that stank of pollen, while she sent her son off to find a nurse to top up her pain relief, when she could have just pressed the buzzer. “Someone needs to look out for him,” she said. “I know you’ll do it, Nathaniel, same as you look out for your brother. You boys have been good to my Teddy. Keep him on the right path.”
I’m not sure rock and roll was what she had in mind, but there’s not a whole lot else the lot of us are good for, especially Knox. I can’t exactly see him holding down a typical job, he’d forget where he was supposed to be and what he was doing all the time, but things weren’t quite so bad with him back then.
“We carry on as we are,” I say, making it plain that the conversation is done for good. It’s time Knox and I got down to work.
Joel gives me the stink-eye. “Maybe Bitch Slap are looking for a drummer,” he mutters, stilling me, before I’ve had a chance to take a step.
“Don’t even fucking joke about it.”
“The only joke is that we’re saddled with Knox. If he blows it…” Joel shakes his shaggy mass of curls. “It’ll be choosing time for all of us.” With that threat still hanging in the air, he storms out, leaving me wondering what I’d do if it came down to that choice.
Knox or Joel?
Mediocre bassist or fucking hot drummer?
Teddy bear or wild beast?
It’s not a question with an easy answer.
-6-
Nathaniel Darke
After the door stops rattling following Joel’s departure, I dowse my face with icy water. Everything is going so wrong tonight, that I hardly know what to do anymore. Scream. Tear a few handfuls of hair out. Punch mirrors. The one right before me is tempting, but seven years bad luck is not what I need. Instead, I fill the basin and this time, properly dunk my head. The cold brings crystal clarity to the situation. Only one thing of importance matters, and that’s finishingTL:DR. Everything else can wait. It really can.
I slick my wet hair back when I raise my head from the water and secure the dark strands with a hairband. There’s no sign of the rest of Paradise Kiss or Bitch Slap in the foyer as I pass back through. I collect my guitar and Knox’s bass from the dressing room, then head into the dark function room. I flick on a single light switch, which turns on the centre stage spotlight, giving me a puddle of illumination in which to work. There’s no sign of Knox. Ten minutes pass and he still doesn’t show. Obviously, he’s forgotten he was supposed to be here, but I decide to give him a little longer anyway. It won’t hurt for me to go over what we’ve got and refresh my memory. Maybe working it out alone isn’t such a bad plan anyway. It’s hard work keeping Knox focussed, whereas once I’m lost in the zone, I can work for hours without my attention wandering.
Normally, I stick to an acoustic for composing, but the normal method has failed me so far. In any case, old trusty is at home in her case. I connect up Knox’s bass. Bass guitar isn’t my instrument. It’s different to playing lead, even if to the uneducated they look like virtually the same animal. Still, I try out a few chords and manage to produce a sound that’s not wholly akin to a caterwaul. The situation is made more taxing by the fact that Knox is a leftie and his bass is custom-made to his personal taste. Nothing about it is comfortable. It feels alien. Still I slip on some headphones and fire up the dirty mix of the track as it stands so far.
This is the song that’s going to make us. Whether Graham Callahan says yay or nay in the morning won’t matter once this gem is complete. It has all time classic pencilled all over it. I knew that from the moment I had the first chords. Listening, I can almost hear what’s missing. I know where the additional bass notes are supposed to fit, but the exact pattern remains a mystery. I try a few things, but…wrong…wrong…wrong. It fails to blend smoothly, making things discordant instead. What I need is something that will provide shape, give the music some backbone. So I keep working, playing the recording on an endless loop, head down, fingers dancing over the frets, wondering if my fingertips are going to be so numb by tomorrow morning that I’ll be unable to play. I need to get this right. It’s almost, almost there…I swear I catch a hint of it on the very edge of my senses. I lean towards it, I strain for it, pray for it, which is right when I realise I’m not alone.
“’bout time, Knox.”
The time on my watch is 1:40AM. The minutes are flying by too quickly.
“It’s not Knox,” she says. “Leastways, I’m not him, and he’s not here.”
