“Écoutez-moi.” JP urges us to listen as he slides down the banister while we’re finally making our way out of the office building.“I think for phase one, we should lock Cole and Roxy in the tour bus shower together.”
“No,” I order, in the tone that can shut almost any conversation down. “Stop.Now.”
Normally JP is smart enough to listen to that tone, but not today.
“Actually, I don’t think we’ll even need a phase two if that’s phase one,” he continues, “but if we do—”
“How is that going to work? The bus shower barely even fitsoneperson,” Ace argues.
“Exactly.” JP does some weird shit with his eyebrows that I think is supposed to be suggestive. “They’re going to have to stand very close together.Veryclose together.”
And there’s the dick-in-vagina hand signal again.
“Enough.”
They all pause and turn to where I’ve stopped moving on the sidewalk.
“It’s not a joke, and it’snotyour business.” I wait for someone to interrupt, but it seems like they’re finally going to shut up about it. “We clear?”
“Cole—” Matt begins.
“I said: we clear?”
“We’re clear, but—”
“No buts. Just stay out of it, guys.” I roll my shoulders a few times, trying to loosen the tension that’s taken hold of me. “Look, I gotta go. I’ll see all you on tour day.”
I take off down the street, moving fast but not fast enough to miss JP’s comment of, “Do you think the ‘no buts’ thing includes Roxy’s butt?”
I fight the urge to turn around and rip him a new one. Normally I can handle the guys’ shit better than this. It’s what we do, after all: take the piss out of each other, make just the right jokes to get a rise and then laugh it off. After so many years crammed into vans and recording rooms together, they’re the closest thing to brothers I have left in my life. They’re family.
If I’m honest, I knowfamilyis probably the reason I’m so on edge today. The band has become my constant, the thing that grounds me and pushes me forward, but the band is not what raised me, and every once and a while, the past reaches out and pulls me back.
Especially on days like today.
I catch the metro over to my apartment in the Mile End and jog up the staircase, steeling myself as I get ready to make the phone call. I moved into this place awhile ago, but there are still cardboard boxes on the floor, and the walls are bare—save for the one poster I managed to put up.
It’s even framed: a vintage tour poster for The Whirpools. They’re an old rock band from the sixties most people have forgotten about, but in their day, they were huge. They were also fucking brilliant. Their bassist, James Stepper, could do things on his instrument that no one had ever heard before.
He also happens to be black. Black bassists aren’t rare—any list of best bassists of all time will include a lot of them—but blackrockbassists are something else. I’ve experienced for myself how out of place I look in this genre, how much I’ve had to fight for a spot in this world. That’s why I keep the poster on my wall. It’s a reminder that this fight has already been fought and won.
I thank Sherbrooke Stations’ royalty cheques for the rush of air conditioning that hits me as I drop down on the couch below the poster and pull my phone out.
I scroll for the number in my contacts list and breathe out before I hit ‘call.’
“Happy birthday, Auntie,” I greet her.
“Cole, baby!” she sings out in that rich Cameroonian accent that used to welcome me home from school every day. “Thank you for those beautiful flowers. Now tell me: why are you on my telephone and not in my living room?”
I ignore the question. “I’m glad you like the flowers. How are you doing? Having a good birthday?”
“I’m great, baby. We’re just about to have cake. Everyone’s here.”
I can hear the clatter of plates and voices in the background. Someone is playing guitar.
“You could have come to the party,” Auntie continues.
I was hoping we could just have a nice, quick conversation and not get into this shit, but I can tell she’s not giving it up.
