Deep Cuts, page 5
“But you just said McCartney’s in your constitution,” he said.
“I think I said I would interpret the constitution through the lens of McCartney.”
We watched each other enjoy the absurdity of this idea.
“If we’re back on music,” Zoe said, pushing aside her plate, “I have to say, No Doubt still sucks. I’m sorry, but I listened to that ‘Total Hate’ song and it made me throw up in my mouth.”
“That’s cool,” I said. “Do you think that’s because you have no taste, or…?”
Joe whooped.
“Or maybe because that song is fun, and you take yourself too seriously?” I said. “Just spitballing here.”
Zoe sat back, her eyes narrowing under her painted black lids. “You are truly annoying, Percy.”
“I know,” I said. I took a slurp of my cocktail. “Don’t worry, I hate myself.”
“I don’t hate you,” she said.
“Me neither,” Joe said. “I love you, actually.”
“I’m just annoyed by you sometimes,” Zoe finished, shooting Joe a look I couldn’t decipher. “There’s a difference.”
“I’m mostly annoying when I talk about music,” I said, shrugging. I was drunker than the two of them, who’d been trading off driving duties. “But that’s also when I’m at my best, so.”
Zoe tilted her head at this, then surprised me with a considered nod. “Bit of a dilemma,” she said. She held my gaze for a long second and then laughed.
I thought about saying I love you too Joe—the words were ready and waiting, banging on the roof of my mouth to get out; I would say them in a jokey tone, just like he had, no big deal—but I was too scared of ruining what was happening. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t ruined it already, that they were both still smiling at me, their faces warm, open, wanting more.
* * *
—
We ended up at the open mic. It was a sprawling bar pretending to be a dive, wood-framed velvet paintings tacked on the wall at intentionally disheveled angles. There seemed to be an informal reunion of old friends in town for the holiday. Joe was swallowed by tall-people arms, and Zoe pulled me into an alcove by the bathroom with one round table and a lone chair.
She sat on the table and pointed at the chair. “Sit with me.”
“Why?” I peered out at the crowd. He seemed more comfortable around these people than he did at Berkeley. I wanted to be out there, observing him in his habitat. But I sat in the chair.
“Everyone loves him, but he doesn’t love them back. He just pretends to. Lately I can’t stomach it.”
“He was popular in high school, huh?” I said. “It’s actually impossible for me to imagine what that would be like.”
She swung her feet a few times, boots kicking the wall behind us, then looked down the length of her nose at me. “You can have him if you want.”
I swallowed. A hot clang in my groin.
“I’m serious,” she said. “Not now, but when we break up.”
I didn’t know where to start. What? Why? When? “How do you know he wants me?” I finally asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Come on,” she said. “You’re his musical soulmate, and you’re cute. Dudes aren’t that complicated.”
I peered into the main room, where someone’s set was ending to distracted applause. Joe was standing against the back wall with his acoustic strapped on, waiting. I felt the urge to run to him, to seize my chance—like it would be too late once all these people had seen him sing.
Zoe was watching me with a knowing look. “Don’t be intimidated,” she said. “His bar is pretty low after five years dating a dyke.”
I stood. What had she said?
“Sit down,” she said. “This is why I hate telling girls, they always think I want to make out. Do you want to make out with every guy you know?”
I became unbearably thirsty, my mouth gluey with the residue of suburban drinks. Joe was stepping up to the mic. “Why haven’t you told him?”
She sighed. “I promised him I’d never leave him. I know what that sounds like, but…you’ll see, if you stick around long enough. You’ll get to know him.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t appreciate being lied to, though?”
“I’m not lying,” she said hotly. “I’ve been on my own journey too, dude. Last year I told him I was bi, to which he was like, ‘Cool, whatever.’ Then in the summer I basically told him his dick makes my skin crawl, and he was like, ‘Okay, let’s snuggle.’ ”
A weird burp of a laugh escaped my mouth.
“Recently, finally, the Ring Finger girls started talking and it got back to him, which was…clarifying, I guess.”
Somebody said you said it was over. “So he does know,” I said, understanding.
“It’s just a matter of sawing off the limb. I said we’d wait until he was ready—first it was going to be after Thanksgiving, now we’re saying after winter break. You know his dad is a shit show, right? Real classic alcoholic. Joey spends holidays at my house, most weekends too. I can’t keep doing that once we break up. I’ve been very clear about that. But it’s hard.” She leaned back against the wall, looking suddenly tired. “It’s like I’m orphaning him.”
All this information was making me claustrophobic. “I’m getting water,” I said, and left the alcove.
Joe was on a small stage in the corner of the main room, midway through a gorgeous song that I thought for a staggering moment was an original, until I overheard someone identify it for a friend as “Strangers” by the Kinks. I stood by the water station and watched. His voice sounded a bit timid, but still managed to rain all over the place, clean and cool. He had given up trying to extend the mic higher and resorted to stooping. People were listening more than they’d listened to the last singer, although that wasn’t saying much.
Zoe came up beside me and tucked my hair behind my ear so she could speak directly into it: “You’ve been good for him,” she said, as he transitioned into the opening to “Somebody Said.” “Thank you.”
This bothered me, like I was a stuffed animal handed to a child in crisis. “I mean, I also helped him write this song,” I said. “Maybe thank me for that.”
“Oh fuck off, Percy,” she said, and refilled my water glass for me.
We went back to Zoe’s parents’ garage with a six-pack and Luke Skinner, a long-haired dude in a Metallica shirt. He seemed to be a vague acquaintance, judging by the fact that they called him only by his full name, but he’d made an impression on Joe that night when he’d bragged about spending eight hours a day practicing guitar while Joe wasted his life at college. Zoe and I played ping-pong while Joe sat on an old blanket-covered couch and watched Luke Skinner perform what I realized was an audition, strumming capably on an unplugged Telecaster. When he ripped into the lead riff from the Pixies’ “Here Comes Your Man” and maintained it for a full song length without rushing or fumbling, Joe turned to look at me over the back of the couch. I nodded.
Luke Skinner tried to turn the night into an inaugural jam with his new bandmate, but Zoe wasn’t having it and sent him home on Joe’s old skateboard. We watched him from the open garage as he sailed down the hill, wind lifting his hair above the guitar on his back. Joe’s eyes were bright.
By this point I had missed the last train, so we all slept together in Zoe’s childhood bedroom. Without much discussion I took the floor and the two of them shared the bed. But when I woke up, I found I had been moved to the bed with Zoe, and Joe was in my spot on the floor, apparently attacked by chivalry in the middle of the night. He was stretched out on his back in a holey undershirt and boxers, his mouth partly open. The boxers had tiny Christmas trees on them.
I made my way to the bathroom and rummaged through a medicine cabinet for Advil. Through the thin wood-paneled door I could hear CNN—hanging chads, Broward County—and Zoe’s parents making coffee. Her mom was Jewish, but her dad was Mexican, and I had spotted a decorative crucifix in the living room. The whole house teemed with layered, nonsensical clutter; in a basket on the bathroom counter, for example, I could see a pamphlet about state parks, a small bag of safety pins, and an old five-by-seven photograph, unframed and creased in the middle. It comforted me, this mess. It made the house feel like a proper family lived here, one with better things to do than clean.
“Joey likes it black now,” I heard Zoe’s dad say through the bathroom door.
“Since when?” came the mom’s reply. “He used half-and-half last time. I’ll run to the store.”
I plucked the photo out of the basket. A younger Joe and Zoe stood in front of the mantel holding up their Christmas stockings, still full—lottery scratchers stuck out of the tops of each, a rolled-up poster in Joe’s. Zoe was wearing a Nevermind T-shirt and plaid pajama bottoms, and hadn’t yet come into her punk look; her hair hung straight and black to her collarbones. Joe was smiling with a teenager’s self-awareness, eyes mid-blink, a zit on his chin so big I could feel the ache of it. I was starting to piece together the timeline: after his mom’s death, Joe had survived for a year while his dad spiraled; then he’d gotten together with Zoe and become, effectively, a Gutierrez. An uninformed observer of the photograph would’ve thought they were siblings.
I slid the picture back into the basket and washed my face, then stared at myself in the mirror. I was cute, Zoe had said. Was it true? I wasn’t completely oblivious, like that girl you see in movies who inexplicably perceives herself to be a bridge-dwelling troll when actually she’s Molly Ringwald—I knew I was neither, and probably closer to Molly than the troll. But I had factors working against me when it came to guys: I was obnoxious, I was inexperienced, I didn’t play the game. And I’d never zeroed in on any one style, as Zoe had done so well in the years since this photograph, which made me feel recessive in the context of my peers, a vague smear of a girl. But maybe Joe saw me clearly, the way some people can look at an abstract painting and instantly discern the figure. Maybe it was actually going to happen for me. I shuddered with happiness and a splitting headache.
Funny Strange
The rest of the semester passed slowly, but it was a good slow—it was the way I suspected time was always intended to pass. It feels like a calendar error, when I think about it now, that there were only a few weeks between that night in the suburbs and the end of that year. Most weeknights, Zoe and I met at one of a handful of local coffee shops named after Italian cities, studying and talking and eating stale muffins for dinner, while Joe did the grunt work of building a band: teaching his songs to Luke Skinner, posting flyers for drummers and bassists in Amoeba with his number on tear-away strips, auditioning all the randoms who called, securing a shared practice space in Oakland. Around ten or eleven he’d meet up with us and download on the latest: who was sounding good, who was sounding bad, when they might be ready for shows.
I waitressed on Friday nights and Sunday brunches, collecting my tips in an envelope I kept under my mattress; I usually had enough to cover rent by the middle of the month. Joe worked at a frozen yogurt shop for minimum wage until I got him a job at the diner by lying to my boss about his experience, then covering for his mistakes once he started. Zoe often came in for the last hour of our shifts, drinking coffee and studying at the counter while we balanced the register. And then we went out.
It’s hard to say where we went. My memories are vague on context, usually in transit or sitting on stoops, occasionally at shows or poetry slams or parties full of people we ignored. Sometimes eating fries and veggie burgers (I had eased into their vegetarianism without fanfare) at Irish bars. There were other people around—the Ring Finger girls, Joe’s roommates, Megan—but we had the most fun, the easiest time, as a threesome.
We each had our roles. Joe the engine, me the contrarian. Zoe the grounded one, actually well-rounded, though given to bursts of irritation with us both. She was eager to moderate when the conversation became too musical, probably to exert some control in an area where she had less to contribute, and liked to give us conversational assignments.
For example, one late weekend night while waiting in the bathroom line at a co-op party, Joe and I were talking about the title of the new Microphones album (It Was Hot, We Stayed in the Water) when Zoe barked, “Favorite album title.”
“Genocide and Juice,” Joe said soberly.
I went for humor to balance him out. “CrazySexyCool, TLC,” I said. “Left Eye was crazy, T-something was sexy, Chilli was cool. Plus it was one word, you guys. But with capitals.”
Zoe laughed and gave Joe the point, poking her thumb in his direction. “Chilli was sexy. Worst album title.”
I clapped with excitement. “Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie Wonder!”
“Oh my god,” Joe said. “I’ve never thought about how stupid that is.”
Zoe made a face. “That’s just because you guys are white. White people can’t handle things being obvious.”
“What are you talking about, we’re the most obvious,” I said. “We invented country music.”
“Did we, though?”
I paused. “Probably not.”
“Even if we did, it wasn’t white university students,” Zoe said, nodding down the hall at a circle of hacky sackers. “It was white people who were impoverished. It takes privilege to think something’s cheesy.”
“Here we go,” I said. “The millionaire who said imagine no possessions.”
Joe gave me a look that said he knew this was an Elvis Costello reference and we would discuss it later, but Zoe was pissed. “I’m not a millionaire!” she said.
“You’re the only one here whose bedroom has a door on it.”
“You guys will never stop punishing me for that door.”
“Shut up!” Joe said, pulling his hair. “How am I supposed to think when you’re charging everything with cultural context?”
“Speaking of TLC,” I said, pivoting to distraction tactics. “Did you know they got the idea for ‘Waterfalls’ from a Paul McCartney deep cut?”
“Yes,” Joe said. “I mean no, but stop talking. Okay. Okay. Thank you for that reference. Ringo Starr did a solo album called Time Takes Time.”
I had to cross my legs to stop from peeing myself.
I know it all sounds familiar: record-store nerds and their dumb games, one-upping each other to pass the time. But it felt different to me. The goal was stream-of-consciousness riffing; any evidence of posturing or preparing was a greater sin than losing. Losing was fine, actually. Lame references were fine. That we did not process music entirely through a lens of coolness felt radical to me at the time.
Here’s a better example: instead of patting each other on the back for hating “Let It Be,” as they did at Amoeba, we tried to understand how “Something” managed to sound so magical despite being one of the least melodic songs on Abbey Road. Zoe said it was the honesty of the lyrics (“How many love songs admit that they don’t know whether their love will grow, that they don’t even know what it is they love about the person? It’s fundamentally antiestablishment”); Joe said it was the major sevenths and ambiguous key, which matched the blurry experience of Harrison’s love.
Joe and I were always working on his music, though we never pulled another all-nighter; the songs were just always there between us, like a balloon we’d been tasked to keep afloat. On my way to work I would pass his house and leave lyric revisions taped to his door: Don’t switch tenses in the second verse, it’s distracting/serves no purpose. He attached MP3s to unrelated emails: My friend is working the door for the Aislers Set tomorrow so we can get in free. Hey am i ripping something off with this melody? He picked up every guitar he ever saw to play me something, at parties or thrift stores or (once, drunk) from the hands of a busker on Telegraph Avenue. If Zoe was around she would usually wander off, though sometimes I saw her watching us carefully.
I relished my role as his musical sidekick. It gave me great power without risk or accountability. I’d spout my opinions, which came easily to me, then bask in the glow of creative satisfaction.
But sometimes I took it too far. Maybe it went to my head. About a song itself, I could say anything—I could say it was derivative junk; he’d just toss it out and return days later with something new. (He was enormously prolific those first few months of our friendship; he must’ve written a song a week.) But sometimes my pushback slid outside of the song and onto his broader tendencies as an artist, and that was when things got sticky.
The worst was when he first showed me a song called “Funny Strange,” an up-tempo jam about the apocalypse that would eventually become the title track of his band’s album. We were in his house, leaning back on his futon, our feet on the coffee table between scattered beer cans and half-empty chip bags. Zoe had left early to finish a paper and he’d played the rough recording for me at max volume. It had an obvious, easy hook: “What was funny haha / Became funny stra-a-a-ange”—then he half spoke the final line with a maximum of mumblecore charm: “How long till we’re laughing in our graves?” That chorus worked brilliantly, and I told him so. But I also told him that the verses, a metered list of environmental horrors, reminded me of “We Didn’t Start the Fire”—a reference that, understandably, made him bristle.
And then I pushed it further:
“You always do this, when you have a great hook,” I said. “You phone the rest in.” I could feel the momentum of the idea forming in my head, barreling toward expression without my permission. “And if you have no hook, it’s the opposite—you labor over the thing, strangle it half to death. It’s always one or the other.”
