“Your pants are falling off,” he says. He stays there a moment, just breathing, and something spreads through me, soft and slow as fur. I let my breath out for the first time in what feels like days. Weeks.
Buck stands back and whacks me on the ass.
I turn and give him a shove. “Don’t touch the merchandise unless you’re gonna buy it,” I say.
“How much?” says Buck.
“Too much for you,” I say.
“How do you know?”
“I got a feeling.”
Buck mumbles back something, smiling, looking at the floor.
“What?”
He looks back at me. “What?”
“What did you say?”
“What did you say?”
“Stop doing that!” I laugh.
“Stop doing that!” He laughs.
“Are you kidding me?”
“Are you kidding me?”
What are we, twelve?”
“What are we, twelve?”
“Stop it!”
“Stop it!”
“Buck! Fuck you! I’m not kidding!” I yell, pushing him again, harder this time, and he stumbles backward over a road case and falls on the floor. “Oh my God,” I say, laughing, trying not to laugh. “Are you okay?”
“Wow,” says Buck, rolling onto his back. “I think you killed me.” I offer him my hand. “Sorry,” I say, pulling him up. “Really.”
“Sorry?” he says, standing, still holding my hand, pulling me in to him. “Let’s do it again.”
...
Welcome to the dead zone — post-soundcheck, pre-show. I’m standing at the little bar at the side of the room with a cup of coffee because it’s too early to start drinking, though all I want to do is drink. My blood still feels like hot, dry sand, though it’s no longer falling. Now it’s just gathering at the tips of my fingers, in the middle of my head.
“You wanna grab a bite?” says Robby, hitting his drumsticks against his thighs. “We’re gonna head next door.”
“Naah,” I say, “I’m not hungry.” I can feel my stomach gurgling, but it doesn’t feel like hunger. It feels like pain. The truth is, I’m so hungry, I’m not hungry anymore. At first I was trying to lose weight, back during my Squint Records, When in Rock plan. But at this point, I seem to have lost track. I’m afraid my head’s looking too big for my body, like one of those spooky-eyed anorexic girls. “You guys go ahead. I’m just gonna hang here and take care of the list and whatever. And Neil told me some people will probably be showing up early, so I should probably stick around.”
Robby does a drum roll on his thighs. “All right. We’ll be back.”
I keep standing there, feeling the emptiness in my stomach, relieved that I won’t have to eat, that my tight blue cords are loose, that I won’t have to worry about any of the pesky flab that used to edge out over the snap. Being this thin makes me relaxed. At least I keep telling myself that, ignoring that it also makes me exhausted, on edge, suspicious, lonely.
The college-boy band and a bunch of girls are against the other wall, laughing and smoking. The guy with the bandana is looking at me again. He’s tall and handsome, with one of those bodies you can see hulking right there under his clothes. He smiles at me. I figure he must know who I am because guys like him don’t smile at girls like me.
He walks over. “Hey,” he says, “I’m Dave,” and he puts his arm down along the bar, his hand resting on my cigarettes. “I love your record. I already figured out ‘Everything’s Different Now.’ ”
“Wow. That’s amazing. Thanks,” I say.
“We’re working with Guy. You got some cool guitars,” he says, picking up my cigarettes, wiggling the pack in the air. “May I?” he says.
“Sure,” I say.
“Thanks,” he says, and removes a cigarette with his teeth, pulls a silver Zippo from his pocket, brings it down against his thigh and back up, opening and lighting it in one fluid motion. He lights his cigarette and takes a big drag, then blows the smoke out in perfect circles, circles within circles.
Dave buys me a beer and after a few sips I feel better. This is what helps. Alcohol. Alcohol and cigarettes. Alcohol and cigarettes and boys.
...
A couple of hours later, the Frontload is beginning to fill up. I’m sitting drinking at a table against the wall. People keep coming over, saying hi, sitting down, getting up, coming back, bringing drinks. It’s all very whirligig, with dishes clattering and people laughing, and suddenly blasts of music coming through the door in the back. So this is what it’s like to be me now, I keep thinking as the same cooler-than-thou music types who’ve been completely ignoring me for years are now waving to me, rapping their knuckles on my table, giving me things: cassettes, 45s, flyers. But mostly, it’s eyeballs. Big and white and slanting in my direction.