The splint was already itching by the time we left the hospital. I paid cash and they gave me the paperwork for a local HMO to fill out. The managerial part of my brain was saying we ought to get a group plan, for all of us, but it was drowned out by the jumble [...]
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Reggie gave me another beer and he and me and Colin shared a joint in the back room, sitting on milk crates and talking. If they noticed any change in my mood they hadn’t said anything yet. When I asked if the goateed security dweeb at [...]
By eight pm Ziggy was still nowhere to be found, and I still hadn’t read the main part of the article. I sat in the basement with the Ovation in my lap noodling until Bart finally said “What’s wrong with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what’s going on in your head, Daron?” He put his [...]
Dim stars burned like distant pinpricks through a blacked out window. “If I had to put a label on it I’d guess… it’s yet another anti-establishment song about divorced parents fucking up your life.”
Bart drank some Yoo Hoo and looked at me. “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.” He was still looking [...]
In the morning I woke to find Ziggy tucked into my arm and my chest like a sleeping baby, his cheek against my breastbone. Sun streamed through the curtains that we’d been too busy to draw. He opened one eye and looked at me, smirked as his hand strayed between my legs.
I moaned and [...]
After Bart dropped Ziggy off, he turned the car toward Cambridge. We parked behind the McDonalds, but crossed the street to the Middle East where greater quantities of food could be had, cheaper, if you didn’t mind rude waitresses and a lot of spillover noise from the club room in the back. He wanted to [...]
A lot of the time when I play, it’s like my brain shuts off. Later, I kind of wake up in the middle of a song and I can remember everything that has been going on, but it’s almost like someone else was doing it. I don’t realize it when I’m slipping into that state, [...]
The name on the card Artie had given me was Michael Knight. I had figured he’d be a guy a lot like Artie, but he wasn’t really. We played phone tag for about two weeks and then one day his secretary caught me at home and told me Mister Knight was on the line–after which [...]
As soon as I could, I booked us a gig in New York, anywhere, so we could showcase for Artie. This was not a simple feat, even for a band willing to play for basically nothing. NYC is crawling with underworked bands and the club owners don’t even have to give you the time of [...]
I picked up our pay in cash from the club owner. Seventy five bucks. Michelle helped us load our stuff into Bart’s car. “Good thing you guys don’t have a drummer,” she said, looking at the packed back seat. “How are we going to unpack when we get home?”
“What do you mean?” Bart said. “We’ll [...]
