Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea

by Sarah Pinsker

  With the bike kids’ help, we made quick work of the remaining gear. Waited a little longer while Rudy counted money and handed it over to me with no small amount of pride.

  “Thank you,” I said, and meant it. It had been a really good show, and the money was actually better than expected. “We’ll come back here anytime.”

  Just to prove it, I pulled my date book from my backpack. He called Emma over, and together we penned in a return engagement in three months. I was glad to work with people so competent; there was a good chance they’d still be there in three months.

  We ended up at a diner, van parked in front, bikes chained to the fence behind it, an unruly herd.

  I was so tired the menu didn’t look like English; then I realized I was looking at the Spanish side.

  “Is there a fridge at the place we’re staying?” Silva asked.

  Smart guy. Emma nodded. Silva and Jacky and I immediately ordered variations on an omelet theme, without looking further at either side of the menu. The beauty of omelets: you ate all the toast and potatoes, wrapped the rest, and the eggs would still taste fine the next day. Two meals in one, maybe three, and we hadn’t had to hit a dumpster in two full days.

  Our hosts were a riot. I barely kept my eyes open—at least twice I realized they weren’t—but Emma talked about Columbus politics and bikes and greenspaces with a combination of humor and enthusiasm that made me glad for the millionth time for the kind of places we played, even if I didn’t quite keep up my end of the conversation. Nikki Kellerman could flush herself down the toilet. I wouldn’t trade these kids for anything.

  Until we saw the place on offer. After the lovely meal, after following their bikes at bike speed through unknown and unknowable dark neighborhoods, Silva pulled the van up. The last portion had involved turning off the road along two long ruts in grass grown over a paved drive. I had tried to follow in my atlas on the city inset, but gave up when the streets didn’t match.

  “Dude,” I said, opening my eyes. “What is that?”

  We all stared upward. At first glance it looked like an enormous brick plantation house, with peeling white pillars supporting the upper floors. At second, maybe some kind of factory.

  “Old barracks,” said Jacky, king of local tourist sites. “Those kids got themselves an abandoned fort.”

  “I wonder if it came with contents included.” Silva mimed loading a rifle. “Bike or die.”

  I laughed.

  Jacky leaned into the front seat. “If you tell me I have to haul in my entire kit, I swear to God I’m quitting this band. I’ll join the bike militia. Swear to God.”

  I peered out the windows, but had no sense of location. “Silva?”

  “I can sleep in the van if you think I should.”

  It was a generous offer, given that actual beds were in the cards.

  “You don’t have to do that,” I decided. “We’ll take our chances.”

  I stopped at the back gate for my guitar, in the hopes of having a few minutes to play in the morning. Silva did the same. We shouldered instruments and backpacks, and Jacky took the three Styrofoam boxes with our omelets. The bike kids waited in a cluster by an enormous door. We staggered their way.

  “So who has the keys?” Silva asked.

  Emma grinned. “Walk this way.”

  The big door was only for dramatic effect. We went in through a small, unlocked door on the side. It looked haphazardly placed, a late addition to the architecture. A generator hummed just outside the door, powering a refrigerator, where we left our leftovers. I hoped it also powered overhead lights, but the bike kids all drew out halogen flashlights as soon as we had stored the food.

  The shadows made everything look ominous and decrepit; I wasn’t sure it wouldn’t look the same in daylight. Up a crumbling staircase, then a second, to a smaller third floor. Walls on one side, railing on the other, looking down over a central core, all black. Our footsteps echoed through the emptiness. In my tired state, I imagined being told to bed down in the hallway, sleeping with my head pressed to the floor. If they didn’t stop soon, I might.

  We didn’t have to go farther. Emma swung open an unmarked door and handed me her flashlight. I panned it over the room. A breeze wafted through broken glass. An open futon took up most of the space, a threadbare couch sagging beneath the window. How those things had made it up to this room without the stairs falling away entirely was a mystery, but I had never been so happy to see furniture in my entire life.

  I dropped my shoulder and lowered my guitar to the floor. The bike kids stared at us and we stared back. Oh God, I thought. If they want to hang out more, I’m going to cry.

  “This is fantastic,” said Silva, the diplomat. “Thank you so much. This is so much better than sleeping in the van.”

  “Sweet. Hasta mañana!” said Rudy, his spiky head bobbing. They backed out the door, closing it behind them, and creaked off down the hallway.

  I sank into the couch. “I’m not moving again,” I said.

  “Did they say whether they’re renting or squatting? Is anybody else getting a jail vibe?” Jacky asked, flopping back onto the futon.

  Silva opened the door. “We’re not locked in.” He looked out into the hallway and then turned back to us. “But, uh, they’re gone without a trace. Did either of you catch where the bathroom was?”

  I shook my head, or I think I did. They were on their own.

  The night wasn’t a pleasant one. I woke once to the sound of Silva pissing in a bottle, once to a sound like animals scratching at the door, once to realize there was a spring sticking through the couch and into my thigh. The fourth time, near eight in the morning, I found myself staring at the ceiling at a crack that looked like a rabbit. I turned my head and noticed a cat pan under the futon. Maybe it explained the scratching I had heard earlier.

  I rolled over and stood up one vertebra at a time. Other than the spring, it hadn’t been a bad couch. My back felt better than the night before. I grabbed my guitar and slipped out the door.

  I tried to keep my steps from echoing. With the first daylight streaming in through the jagged windows, I saw exactly how dilapidated the place was, like it had been left to go feral. I crept down to the first floor, past a mural that looked like a battle plan for world domination, all circles and arrows, and another of two bikes in carnal embrace. Three locked doors, then I spotted the fridge and the door out. Beyond this huge building there were several others of similar size, spread across a green campus. Were they all filled with bike kids? It was a pleasant thought. I’d never seen any place like this. I sat down on the ground, my back against the building, in the morning sunshine.

  It was nice to be alone with my guitar. The problem with touring constantly was we were always driving, always with people, always playing the same songs we already knew. And when we did have downtime, we’d spend it tracking down new gigs, or following up to make sure the next places still existed. The important things like writing new songs fell to last on the list.

  This guitar and I, we were old friends. The varnish above her pick guard had worn away where I hit it on the downstroke. Tiny grooves marked where my fingers had indented the frets. She fit my hands perfectly. We never talked anymore.

  She was an old Les Paul knockoff, silver cloudburst except where the bare wood showed through. Heavy as anything, the reason why my back hurt so constantly. The hunch of my shoulder as I bent over her was permanent. And of course with no amp she didn’t make any sound beyond string jangle. Still, she felt good.

  I didn’t need to play the songs we played every night, but my fingers have always insisted on playing through the familiar before they can find new patterns. I played some old stuff, songs I loved when I was first teaching myself to play, Frightwig and the Kathleen Battle School and disappear fear, just to play something I could really feel. Then a couple of bars of “She’s the One,�
� then what I remembered of a Moby K. Dick whale song. I liked those kids.

  When I finally hit my brain’s unlock code, it latched on to a twisty little minor descent. The same rhythm as the whale song, but a different progression, a different riff. A tiny theft, the kind all musicians make. There was only so much original to do within twelve notes. Hell, most classic punk was built on a couple of chords. What did Lou Reed say? One chord is fine, two chords is pushing it, three chords you’re into jazz?

  I knew what I was singing about before I even sang it. That StageHolo offer, and the idea of playing for a paid audience night after night, the good and the bad parts. The funny thing about bargains with the devil was you so rarely heard about people turning him down; maybe sometimes it was worth your soul. I scrambled in my gig-bag pocket for a pen and paper. When I came up with only a sharpie, I wrote the lyrics on my arm. The chords would keep. I’d remember them. Would probably remember the lyrics too, but I wasn’t chancing it.

  Silva stepped out a little while later, wearing only a ratty towel around his waist. “There’s a bucket shower out the back!”

  “Show me in a sec, but first, check it out.” I played him what I had.

  His eyes widened. “Be right back.”

  He returned a moment later wearing jeans, bass in hand. We both had to play hard, and I had to whisper-sing to hear the unplugged electric instruments, but we had something we both liked before long.

  “Tonight?” he asked me.

  “Maybe . . . Depends on how early we get there, I guess. And whether there’s an actual soundcheck. Do you remember?”

  He shook his head. “Four-band lineup, at a warehouse. That’s all I remember. But maybe if we leave pretty soon, we can set up early? It’s only about three hours, I think.”

  He showed me where the shower was, and I took advantage of the opportunity. The bike kids appeared with a bag of lumpy apples, and we ate the apples with our omelets, sitting on the floor. Best breakfast in ages. They explained the barracks—the story involved an arts grant and an old school and abandoned buildings and a cat sanctuary, and I got lost somewhere along the way, working on my new song in my head.

  After breakfast, we made our excuse that we had to get on the road. They walked us back the way we came, around the front.

  My smile lasted as long as it took us to round the corner. As long as it took to see Daisy was gone.

  “Did you move her, Jacky?” Silva asked.

  “You’ve got the keys, man.”

  Silva patted his pockets, and came up with the key. We walked closer. Glass.

  I stared at the spot, trying to will Daisy back into place. Blink and she’d be back. How had we let this happen? I went through the night in my head. Had I heard glass breaking, or the engine turning over? I didn’t think so. How many times had we left her outside while we played or ate or showered or slept? I lay down on the path, away from the glass, and looked up at the morning sky.

  The bike kids looked distraught, all talking at once. “This kind of thing never happens.” “We were only trying to help.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I said, after a minute. Then louder, when they didn’t stop. “It wasn’t your fault.” They closed their mouths and looked at me.

  I sat up and continued, leaning back on my hands, trying to be the calm one, the adult. “The bad news is we’re going to need to call the police. The good news is you’re not squatting, so we don’t have to work too hard to explain what we were doing here. The bad news is whoever stole the van can go really far on that tank. The good news is they’re probably local and aren’t trying to drive to Florida. Probably just kids who’ve never gotten to drive something that didn’t drive itself. They’ll abandon her nearby when she runs out of gas.” I was trying to make myself feel better as much as them.

  “And maybe they hate Chinese food,” Jacky said. “Maybe the smell’ll make them so hungry they have to stop for Chinese food. We should try all the local Chinese food places first.”

  Silva had stepped away from the group, already on the phone with the police. I heard snippets, even though his back was turned. License plate. Yes, a van. Yes, out-of-state plates. No, he didn’t own it, but the owner was with him. Yes, we’d wait. Where else did we have to go? Well, Pittsburgh, but it didn’t look like we’d be getting there anytime soon.

  He hung up and dug his hands into his pockets. He didn’t turn around or come back to the group. I should probably have gone over to him, but he didn’t look like he wanted to talk.

  The kids scattered before the police arrived, all but Emma disappearing into the building. Jacky walked off somewhere as well. It occurred to me I didn’t really know much of his history, for all the time we’d been riding together.

  The young policewoman who arrived to take our report was standoffish at first, like we were the criminals. Emma explained the situation. No officer, not squatting, here are the permits. I kept the van registration and insurance in a folder in my backpack, which helped on that end too, so that she came over to our side a little. Just a little.

  “Insurance?”

  “Of course.” I rustled in the same folder, presented the card to her. She looked surprised, and I realized she had expected something electronic. “But only liability and human driver.”

  Surprised her again. “So the van isn’t self-driving?”

  “No, ma’am. I’ve had her—it—for twenty-three years.”

  “But you didn’t convert when the government rebates were offered?”

  “No, ma’am. I love driving.”

  She gave me a funny look.

  “Was anything in the van?” she asked.

  I sighed and started the list, moving from back to front.

  “One drum kit, kind of a hodgepodge of different makes, Ampeg bass rig, Marshall guitar amp, suitcase full of gig clothes. A sleeping bag. A box of novels, maybe fifty of them. Um, all the merchandise: records and T-shirts and stuff to sell . . .” I kept going through all the detritus in my head, discarding the small things: collapsible chopsticks, restaurant menus, pillows, jackets. Those were all replaceable. My thoughts snagged on one thing.

  “A road atlas. Rand McNally.”

  The officer raised her eyebrows. “A what?”

  “A road atlas. A book of maps.”

  “You want me to list that?”

  “Well, it’s in there. And it’s important, to me anyway. It’s annotated. All the places we’ve played, all the places we like to stop and we don’t.” I tried to hide the hitch in my voice. Don’t cry, I told myself. Cry over the van, if you need to. Not over the atlas. You’ll make another. It might take years, but it could be done.

  It wasn’t just the atlas, obviously. Everything we had hadn’t been much, and it was suddenly much less. I was down to the cash in my pocket, the date book, the single change of clothes in my backpack, my guitar. How could we possibly rebuild from there? How do you finish a tour without a van? Or amps, or drums?

  The officer held out her phone to tap a copy of her report over to me.

  “Non-comm,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  Silva stepped in for the first time. He hadn’t even opened his mouth to help me list stuff, but now he held up his phone. “Send it to me, officer.”

  She did, with a promise to follow up as soon as she had any leads. Got in her squad car. She had to actually use the wheel and drive herself back down the rutted path; I guessed places like this were why police cars had a manual option. She had probably written us off already, either way.

  I turned to Silva, but he had walked off. I followed him down the path toward an old warehouse.

  “Stop!” I said, when it was clear he wasn’t going to. He turned toward me. I expected him to be as sad as me, but he looked angrier than I had ever seen him, fists clenched and jaw tight.

  “Whoa,” I said. “Calm down. It’
ll be okay. We’ll figure something out.”

  “How? How, Luce?”

  “They’ll find Daisy. Or we’ll figure something out.”

  “Daisy’s just the start of it. It’s amps and records and T-shirts and everything we own. I don’t even have another pair of underwear. Do you?”

  I shook my head. “We can buy—”

  “We can buy underwear at the Superwally. But not all that other stuff. We can’t afford it. This is it. We’re done. Unless.”

  “Unless?”

  He unclenched his left fist and held out a scrap of paper. I took it from him and flattened it. Nikki Kellerman’s business card, which had been on my amp when I last saw it.

  “No,” I said.

  “Hear me out. We have nothing left. Nothing. You know she’d hook us up if we called now and said we’d sign. We’d get it all back. New amps, new merch, new stage clothes. And we wouldn’t need a new van if we were doing holo shows. We could take a break for a while.”

  “Are you serious? You’d stay in one place and do holo shows?” I waited for an answer. He stomped at a piece of glass in the dirt, grinding it with his boot heel. “We’ve been playing together for twenty years, and I wouldn’t have guessed you’d ever say yes to that.”

  “Come off it, Luce. You know I don’t object the way you do. You know that, or you’d have run it past me before turning her down. I know we’re not a democracy, but you used to give me at least the illusion I had a choice.”

  I bit my lip. “You’re right. I didn’t run it past you. And actually, I didn’t turn her down in the end. I didn’t say yes, but she said some stuff that confused me.”

  That stopped him short. Neither of us said anything for a minute. I looked around. What a weird place to be having this fight; I always figured it would come, but in the van. I waited for a response, and when none came, I prodded. “So you’re saying that’s what you want?”

  “No! Maybe. I don’t know. It doesn’t always seem like the worst idea. But now I don’t think we have another option. I think I could have kept going the way we were for a while longer, but rebuilding from scratch?” He shook his head, then turned and walked away again. I didn’t follow this time.