I can see the tension in his jaw as he pulls his jacket tightly around his chest like a shield.
“What’d you expect?” I say with a shrug. “It’s another Wednesday night at The Underground.”
There’s a long pause. We look at each other withoutsaying anything. It’s always this way. We all know we’re getting nowhere—losers in a big city that swallows even the most talented up and spits them out.
My friends and I have never been in a band together, but at the end of evenings like this one, we always seem to find ourselves in each other’s company. Over the last few months, it feels like maybe we are destined to play together.
“Something has to change,” Norrie mutters, scanning the alleyway
I’m not sure if he means my show, because I’m here again, running out of a club where a fight has broken out and only half my set’s complete, but my guess is he’s still talking about the three of us forming a band.
“It was another close call in there,” he continues. Our history with the club has shaped us—endless nights of disappointments ending in fights or drunken forgetfulness. “You guys think we got away clean again, but we never really do.”
Otis runs a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face. “Cleaner than usual, though. Look, no blood.”
“So far, but the night is young, and we have reputations to maintain,” I chuckle, rubbing the back of my neck. I can still feel the notes I’ve been playing vibrating in my bones.
Otis shrugs. “Same time next week?”
“Probably, unless we stop trying to do it on our own,” Norrie responds. “If we keep trying to go it alone, we’ll keep ending up here.”
I don’t appreciate his certainty but know it’s the truth. This is our life now—the three of us going nowhere andlikely to end up defeated and in dead-end jobs or prison. The latter being particularly true in Otis’ case.
The blue neon sign advertising the club’s name flickers on and off above the door. It’s broken tubes fail to illuminate most of the letters, making it indecipherable and pointless. We all stare at it, as if it bears some deeper, hidden meaning for us. It probably does, representing an unfulfilled existence of potential without ever fully achieving.
“Why are we still here?” I ask nobody in particular while musing on my life.
Since my brother and I got into a fight two years ago, everything has gone downhill. I blame him. I always will.
Norrie blows out a trail of smoke. “I’m here because I recognize a good thing and know what we could be.”
A distant siren wails, getting closer.
Norrie crushes his cigarette beneath his boot. Otis hasn’t moved. He’s just standing with his arms folded across his chest. The silence grows between us until we step away from each other, deliberately and slowly. We have this discussion regularly, and nothing ever changes.
The side door opens, and the club manager steps out, my guitar case in hand. I take it from him. Not saying a word. He gives me the apologetic look I see too often, the one he probably gives to everybody who plays here and ends up hiding in this alley at the side of the club.
It’s a look that offers the kind of remorse I don’t want, because it means I’ve failed again. I didn’t get to finish my set, and nobody even noticed. He nods at the three of us and disappearsback inside.
Turning around I see Norrie and Otis walking away.
Norrie cocks his head my way. “Coffee?”
There has to be more to life than this.
I let out a loud huff of frustration and set off after them. “Not as if I’ve got anywhere else to be.”
two
. . .
Otis
The waitress keeps glaringat Norrie’s mane of curls and wild eyes, Cody’s sleeve tattoos, and my fading black eye from a fight at The Underground last week. According to my blue-chip company owning father, that fight was the final straw.
I feel like I’ve just turned sixteen and expect the cops to walk in and drag me off by the collar. Instead, the waitress pours me another coffee, dark and bitter—a reminder of how the night has been so far.
I don’t think I could be anymore jaded than I am right now. I’d been enjoying Cody’s playing in the club. He’s worked so hard and has really improved, not that he wasn’t any good in the first place, but he’s always lacked confidence in his talent, mostly due to Sebastian. Cody deserves to make it, but The Underground and the other dingy venues we play in aren’t the places where it will happen.
