Chapter 5

Friday night was, as I expected for New York City, overwhelming dull. It is hard to go out and have fun when you do not know where to go, what to do, nor anybody who does know where to go and what to do. I didn’t feel comfortable interposing myself on my acquaintances upstairs, so I ended up falling asleep in front of the television.

After waking up the next morning, I made myself breakfast and decided to tour the city some more. After revisiting St. Patrick’s Cathedral, thus determining just what I’d been ignoring the first time around, I took a meandering, confused stroll through Midtown before finally returning home to another evening of nothing to do. Sometime around eight-thirty in the evening, I decided to call some friends back home.

"Dan-man! How the hell are you?" I practically yelled into the phone.

"Tom! Good to hear from you! How’s New York?"

"Not bad so far, I’m still getting settled."

"How’s the job?"

"It’s a job. Nothing too rough yet. It’ll pick up later, I’m sure. Nothing ever stays calm with these damn ‘puters. How are things in KC?"

"Same as always. Not the bustling metropolis you city-folk are used to," he joked.

"Yeah, but we upscale urbanites do gaze longingly at the simplicity and ignorance of your rural lives."

"Ha, ha! Anyway, we were all heading out to the bars, can I get you anything while I’m out?"

"Just have a beer for me, will you?"

"I’m sure that can be arranged. Tell you what, everything I drink tonight will be for you, that way I’ll still be okay to drive at the end of the evening." He took on a mock, drunk person voice, "Don’t worry officer, I’m not drunk, my friend in New York is. Hic." He then took the receiver away from his mouth as he yelled, "Hey, Tommy’s on the phone!" To which a collection of familiar, clamoring voices yelled back their hellos before he returned to the receiver. "So, you gotten laid out there yet?"

"Come on, man, I’ve only been out here a week," I answered in a jokingly defensive tone.

"Hey, you never know. Got any plans to do so in the near future?"

"Actually, there’s one girl in my building, Lori, that I’d like to jump on, but unfortunately she has a boyfriend and she’s living with another guy."

"She’s living with a male other than her boyfriend?"

"Yep."

"Seems a little unusual, but I guess it isn’t unheard of," he informed me.

"Considering they have a one bedroom apartment, it is pretty strange, yes."

Dan paused, as that sunk in. "Hang on a second, these two non-dating people share a one bedroom apartment?"

"Yes."

"They aren’t sleeping together at all?"

"Honestly, I have no idea," I told him, then described their interpretation of a bunk bed.

Dan was quiet for a moment before coming back with, "Okay, next question, are they obsessive-compulsive performance artists?"

"Not as far as I can tell."

"From what it sounds, those are some pretty unusual people upstairs."

"To tell you the truth, I can’t quite figure them out."

"The girl’s pretty hot though, right?"

"Absolutely."

"Think I can sleep with her, then?"

"We’ll see. First you have to come out here. And, since I’m on the subject, when the hell are you going to do that?"

"As we appear to have been discussing it, I was thinking I would come out there in late spring. That’ll give you plenty of time to inflate your living room."

"Hey, my furniture works fine."

"How about the bookcases?" he continued, "Have you blown up the bookcases?"

"No, not yet."

"The end tables?"

"No…"

"How about the porch swing? Have you inflated the porch swing yet?"

"Hey, Lori told me she likes my furniture."

"She probably didn’t sit on any of it, did she?"

"As a matter of fact, she did."

"Then I think you’ve finally found the perfect woman for you, Tom: one who doesn’t stick to plastic."

"You know, you’re right. I’ll be sure to explain that as my reason for popping the question tomorrow."

"Well, I hate to cut this short, but it looks like our cab just arrived. I’d better let you go back to sitting in a dark room by yourself."

"Gee, thanks."

"Anyway, I’ll talk to you again later on and see you out there in late April or early May."

"You’d better show up, sitting at home alone on Friday night is eventually going to seem almost boring. Have a good time for me tonight."

"Will do."

I hung up the phone as I turned on the television with no particular interest in anything that was on it. Not that much later, I heard a knock on the door.

With some confusion as to whom was there, I glanced out the peephole and was surprised to see Lori and Andrew standing there.

"Ready to go?" Lori asked me as I opened the door.

"Huh?" I told her, as wittily as ever.

"Are you ready to go out?" she repeated.

Andrew helped me out with "Ray’s band is playing tonight."

Actually, this did not help me out at all. I was at a loss for the moment before I realized who Ray was, though I did not recall any previous mention of his having a band, nor did I have any prior indication of their intention to take me to see either him or his band. However, I figured it would be worth it, if only to have something to do that evening. Realizing I was dressed somewhat shabbily compared to the two people in my doorway, I asked, "Should I put on something better than jeans and a sweatshirt?"

"Oh, pffft," was Lori’s reply, "nobody will care, it’s a pretty casual place."

"Okay," I told them as I turned to fetch my wallet and keys. In a minute, we were on our way.

#

After we’d entered the subway station, I asked them, "Just so I know, what sort of music do they play?"

"They’re a typical bar band," Andrew explained, "they cover songs by more popular groups. They don’t bother to play originals because they don’t have any. However, if they did, I’m sure they’d be terrible. I’m assuming you’ve seen a few bands like that in your day."

"Indeed I have. So what does Ray do in the band?"

"He plays bass," Lori answered.

"Oh, okay," I replied, finding that a pretty unexciting choice of instrument. "How long has he been with the band?"

"They’ve been together for about two years, now," Lori explained.

"Where all have they played?"

"Just clubs in the New York area so far," she added.

"They’re not a very good band," Andrew informed me.

I took that with a grain of salt. Andrew played classical cello, I figured he wouldn’t exactly be the best resource on the quality of a rock band.

"I mean, even by local garage band standards, they’re bad," Andrew furthered.

"Well, I guess I’ll have to find out," I told him. Andrew shrugged in an indifferent manner, as though he did not really worry if I believed him right now or not. If nothing else, he was very comfortable in his opinion.

#

After a couple of subway changes, we ended up somewhere in, from what I could narrow down, New York. Since I was mostly incapable of finding my way around, I was not even sure of that at the time. It could have just as easily been Dallas for all I knew, the only thing I could tell for certain was that we had gotten onto subways, switched trains a couple of times and had come out onto a sidewalk with some tall buildings all around. That failed to make things very specific.

With a few disorienting street crossings and turns that left me completely befuddled on how to even get back to the subway, much less home, we ended up at a club named "Crow’s Nest". Most everybody else would call the place a bar but, in New York, it was a club, presumably because "club" sounded much more New York-ish than "bar". It would appear that the definite article also sounded too much like something used by other, inferior cities; thus the club’s name was "Crow’s Nest" not "The Crow’s Nest".

After paying the exorbitant cover charge asked (or rather demanded) by the enormous man crammed into the doorway, I could the see the entirety of the place. The center of the room was consumed by an amebic bar that was, itself, surrounded by patrons mostly of college or young professional age. A relatively small, floodlit stage area was stepped up in the back right corner of the place, not more than half a foot higher than the tiled floor.

The place was too new to have built up any ambience, though it also seemed to be owned by people who had no intention of adding any in the near future. A genuine compliment to give to the place would be, "It’s very clean."

The reason for our being there, the band, was just finishing the task of tuning up. It was a four-member band: a drummer sitting behind a very large drum kit that was itself located behind the other three musicians. The two guitar players were still tuning while the bass player, Ray, was working his hands along the fretboard, clearly rehearsing a part. The guitar player standing in the middle was obviously the lead singer, since his microphone was set forward of the microphones for Ray and the other guitar player.

The drummer, the lead singer and Ray all looked to be formed from the same mold. Crispy new jeans with freshly pressed, tightly fitted T-shirts tucked into them and affectedly new looking belts holding everything together. The lead singer wore a thick gold watch on his right wrist, despite the fact he played guitar right-handed. Ray was wearing a gold chain around his neck that hung down onto the outside of his shirt. I wasn’t sure what adornment the drummer was sporting, but it wasn’t hard to imagine he possessed at least one of his own. All three were solidly built with neatly arranged coifs. They were exactly the sort of guys that most every man wished he was, though not the kind of guy they would want to hang out with, as they would be talking to all the attractive women in the area, forcing you to talk to their fat friends.

The lead guitar player was, overall, similarly dressed, though he was not as squeaky clean as the others. His shirt appeared more to hang on his frame and his jeans looked to be well worn. He didn’t wear any jewelry, nor did he appear to put as much time into his hair. He carried himself in a more relaxed manner, though he seemed much more intent on his instrument, as he finished tuning after the other members of the band were ready. The lead singer introduced the band as "Intravenous DeMilo" and the lead guitarist started off the first song.

We worked our way to the bar and ordered our respective drinks, whereupon I found the drink prices to be surprisingly cheap, presumably one of the selling points for the place. I figured that if I drank enough beer it might make up for the stupidly high fee at the gate.

"Shall we commandeer a table?" Andrew asked us, to which Lori and I agreed over the amplifiers.

We stationed ourselves at one of the tables designed for people to stand around while having a place to rest their drinks and/or ashtrays. I listened to the band for a bit as Lori and Andrew talked about something I could hardly hear. The crowd was not particularly excited about the music. They mostly milled about, continuing their conversations, though doing so much closer to each other in order to be heard over the band.

Eventually I turned to face Lori and Andrew. Intravenous DeMilo didn’t seem to have a lot of punch, so I figured I would see if I could get in on the conversation going on nearby. However, they had finished what they were talking about and were watching the performance.

"Ray sounds good tonight," Andrew eventually observed to me.

With the two guitars and the drums, the bass line was impossible to make out. "I can’t hear him," I yelled above the din.

Andrew nodded emphatically with an ironic, exaggeratedly happy look on his face.

"I can only make out a little bit of it," Lori told us.

"I’m impressed you can make it out at all."

"It helps when you know what you are listening for."

Andrew explained, "Ray always royally fucks up the first few songs. You’ll hear him better later in the set."

"Does he need to get warmed up or something?" I asked him.

"No, that’s how they pick their set," he said, "The songs that Ray doesn’t know are always the first ones they play. That way the sound man can keep him turned down for a while."

"Whose idea was that?" I asked.

"The sound man’s," Andrew told me, "he was tired of being chewed out for not knowing which songs Ray couldn’t play."

Ray did, indeed, look like he was working hard to keep up. He was concentrating on the fretboard and occasionally his mouth would twitch in a way that made it clear he was struggling to get to the next note.

"The guitar player is pretty good," I noted for no other reason than I thought so. To my ears, it seemed he was carrying the band through each song.

"Porter? Oh yeah, he’s very good," Andrew told me, to which Lori added a nodding approval. Andrew continued, "Unfortunately, with the number of guitar players in the New York area, he’s got to take whatever gigs he can get and these guys needed somebody. Brandon, the lead singer, is okay, but okay is all he is and probably ever will be. Marcus, the drummer, is incompetent and Ray is worse."

"Oh, come on," Lori interjected, "Brandon has a very good voice."

"Okay, I’ll grant he could have a good voice," Andrew allowed, "but he sings without any energy."

"He probably would if he wasn’t playing rhythm guitar. It’s not easy singing and playing an instrument."

"Maybe. But he’s had time to practice and he’s still no better."

Not knowing that much about music, I could only ask, "So why isn’t the drummer very good?"

"Marcus? Well, you see the size of that drum kit he’s using?" Andrew asked in a stating sort of manner.

"Yes." I couldn’t miss noting the size of it. It looked like he was trying to reproduce the skyline of Chicago.

"Have you noticed he only uses two drums and two cymbals?"

I made a facial expression that indicated, "Not even a bit."

"Watch him, he’s working the snare, bass, the high hat and one crash cymbal. Everything else just stays silent. They could save themselves significant stage space if they made him get rid of the drums to the left of the bass."

"If you say so," I replied.

"Watch him on the next song."

"Okay," I answered; he seemed to know what he was talking about. Andrew was correct, Marcus did not seem to want to turn his body away from the snare drum. He played everything he could easily reach from the direction he was sitting in, but anything farther to his right than the bass drum, quite a substantial portion of his setup, went unused.

"You seem to be right," I noted aloud. Andrew didn’t really acknowledge that, he just kind of nodded at me in an agreeing manner as he lit a cigarette. He seemed to understand that nobody likes hearing, "I told you so."

#

The evening wore on and Ray’s bass eventually became audible, but not very remarkable. I was not really paying attention to the music until Porter hit a few notes that made Lori perk up, saying, "Come on Tom, we’ve got to dance," as she grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the empty dance floor.

I tried not to make too much of fool of myself out there; I am not much of a dancer. However, Lori had an infectiously uninhibited manner about her that made it clear that no matter what she was doing out there, she was enjoying it. I managed to start having fun through her, since she was having enough for two people. In fact, I was enjoying myself so much that I did not notice until about two-thirds of the way through the next song that there were several people on the dance floor with us, mostly men trying to dance with my partner. Guys were trying to catch her attention with their dancing behind her, in front of her, next to her. She, however, was dancing by herself. Though she seemed to appreciate the attention for itself, she had no interest in any of the actual people providing it. Eventually, I was completely squeezed out of the circle and, with the impetus for being there gone, I returned to the table.

"Finally give up?" Andrew asked me as he finished another smoke.

"Yeah, it was a bit too crowded."

He gave a wry little smile with one half of his face. "She’s a lot of fun out there, isn’t she?"

"She certainly is," I agreed.

"Unfortunately, that herd trying to put the moves on her is part and parcel of going out there with her. Unless you’re the size of someone like Ray, you’re not going to stay near her for very long."

After a few more songs, the band informed the crowd they were taking a break. Ray walked to where Lori was standing and planted a long kiss on her that cleared out the rest of the males in the area. The drummer hit the bar to go work on some women there and the lead singer headed toward a tall, thin, blonde woman lingering near the stage. Porter, however, made a beeline for our table.

"Andrew, how the fuck are you?" he asked as he neared where we were standing.

"Doing well, Porter, how about yourself?" Andrew replied happily.

"Eh," he uttered disappointedly as he gestured with a head movement and facial expression that indicated a general displeasure with his bandmates.

"Oh well. Got any leads on new bands?"

"I’ve got a few that I’m checking. I’ll tell you about them some other time."

Lori and Ray walked up at that point as Lori told me, "You left me hanging out there," in a feigned whine. Ray walked with his arm around her waist and a not quite menacing, but distinctly unfriendly glare that said, "Don’t do it again." I was not sure if the look was for leaving her alone in the wolves’ den or being the wolf she entered with.

"Lori, you know full well that asking someone to dance with you is a pretty temporary proposition," Andrew told her. It seemed to placate Ray; he let a proud smirk take the angry look off his face.

"So Andrew," Porter suddenly asked, "when’s tryouts?"

"A few weeks," Andrew told him.

"Any idea what you’re going to play?"

"I’m still narrowing the list down. I have a few pieces I’m pretty solid on. Hopefully they’ll have an opening this spring."

"Well this year, it’s going to be time for Andy," Lori offered happily.

He pulled out as a cigarette as he said, "Yeah, we’ll see."

"Hey man, you’re due for a break," Porter added.

Andrew shrugged noncommittally. "So anyway, Ray, how’s bass playing going?" he asked, deflecting the attention.

"Real good," Ray answered.

"Good," Andrew told him indifferently.

Lori piped in, "If you’ll excuse me, I think I’m going to go say ‘Hi’ to Brandon." Then she walked off in the direction of the lead singer with Ray in tow.

"So, anyway," Andrew began, "what’s the deal with these other bands?"

"Well, nothing real firm yet, but…yes?" Porter turned to respond to a black-haired girl who caught his attention.

"I just wanted to tell you I’m really impressed with your guitar playing."

"Well thank you. I aim to please."

"If you’ll excuse me," Andrew interjected, "I’m going to hit the bar real quick. Tom? You want anything?"

"Are you getting a round?"

"Sure, why not?"

"I’ll take a Bud."

"Right."

Porter continued conversing with the girl who was hitting on him and I stood there uncomfortably until Lori and Ray returned. It is not much fun being the new guy.

"Having fun over here?" Lori asked me.

"Sure, why not?"

"Oh come on, you’re not having fun are you?"

"I’m just trying to keep up with conversations, but I’m not doing very well."

She reassured me, "Don’t worry, you’ll get caught up just fine. You’re still getting to know us, after all."

About this time Ray motioned Porter toward the direction of the stage.

"Shit, well, I guess I’d better get up there," he told the girl, "Are you sticking around after the show?"

"I’ll be here."

"Good." Then Porter turned to us, "Hey, I’ll see you guys later. Lori, come on up and dance, you seemed to liven up the crowd last time."

"Most definitely, if Tom here will come up with me," she said as she looked at me with an affectionate smile that could melt rock.

"Sure," I told her, knowing she would not let me out of dancing with her even if I had been able to refuse her.

Ray planted a territorial kiss on Lori before he turned to walk back to the stage.