Falling Stars

by Charles Sheehan-Miles

  I tried to think as quickly as I could. I needed to get the car off the road while it still had momentum, or Sean and I would be pushing. I eased the car onto the shoulder and it immediately began bumping on the loose gravel, raising a cloud of dust in the darkness. I let the car roll as far as possible, twenty, fifty, a hundred yards before it finally rolled to a natural stop.

  It was quiet, nothing but darkness and stars to the horizon, a faint wind blowing through the scrub. Somewhere in the distance I heard the sound of a cricket, then another, and as the car sat there longer, the night became louder and louder with the sounds of nocturnal birds and other creatures. Did they have coyotes in California? Mountain lions? Now that I thought about it, what exactly was a coyote, anyway? I started to ask Sean, knowing that in doing so I was risking having to listen to a dissertation, but I was interrupted by Julia stirring.

  “Where are we?” she slurred.

  In as confident a tone as I could muster, I said, “Near Lost Hills. Just stopping to get some rest.”

  She murmured something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like “hotel,” but I just ignored her until Sean put in his two cents.

  “I think she said we should stop at a hotel.”

  I rolled my eyes and looked at Sean, then spoke in an urgent whisper. “Right. I’m sure she did, Sean. But there isn’t much I can do about that right now.”

  “She’s going to be mad,” he observed in his normal, too-loud tone.

  “Mad about what?” Carrie murmured from the back seat.

  Everybody hates me.

  Julia stirred again. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I replied.

  “Except apparently you’re going to be mad about something. Or maybe it’s me. Unclear pronouns,” Carrie said.

  “I don’t think it’s unclear at all,” Sean commented.

  Julia stretched and sat up in her seat. “Where are we again?” She looked around in the darkness.

  “Near Lost Hills,” I said.

  Carrie turned to Sean. “No, it’s definitely unclear. She could have been Julia, or it could have been me. So which was it? Who’s going to be mad?”

  I rolled my eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” I said.

  “It might,” Julia said. “What the hell’s going on, Crank?”

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  “Except,” Sean supplied, “we’re out of gas.”

  “Well, there’s that,” I admitted. “But it’s not a big deal; there’ll be a gas station somewhere.”

  Julia shook her head. “We’re out of gas?”

  “Just a little.”

  She groaned. “Where’s the map?”

  I looked around, but I didn’t see it. “Umm, not sure.”

  Now she was wide awake. “But you know where we are, right?”

  “More or less.”

  Julia thumped her head against the dashboard. She took a deep breath. “So… we’re…somewhere. Out of gas. Not on the highway. And we don’t know where exactly we are. Or the nearest gas station? Or the nearest hotel? Is that it?”

  I swallowed.

  Sean was helpful as always. “The nearest gas station is miles behind us, but it was closed.”

  Julia leaned against the door. “I’m going back to sleep. Wake me up when I’m in my bed in Boston.”

  Nothing like you (Julia)

  “Talk to me, sis,” Carrie said.

  The sun was almost up, the sky a beautiful wash of pale blues and greens. Crank and Sean were three hundred yards away and moving down the highway on foot, Crank carrying a gas can, so Carrie’s question wasn’t even remotely unexpected. I’d been avoiding talking about this for hours. I knew that it was coming; I knew that I was going to have to talk about it. I also knew wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to say it out loud. I wasn’t ready to tell her how I felt, how much I hurt, how just fucking awful the summer tour had been. And the worst part of it was, neither Crank nor I had been able to talk about it.

  As Crank and his brother walked away, Carrie and I sat on the hood of the car watching.

  I sighed. “Okay, well. Where do I start?”

  “The beginning?” Carrie was always logical.

  I shook my head. “Sometimes it’s hard to know where a story begins.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about the tour then? Because last time I saw you two, you couldn’t keep your hands off each other. What the hell happened this summer, Julia?”

  I leaned back on the hood and stared up at the streaks of light blue now stretching across the dome of the heavens as the sun approached. I sniffled, just once. “It’s been a really rough summer.”

  “What the fuck happened, Julia?”

  I felt sick to my stomach. As if saying it out loud would make it worse. As if saying it out loud would remove any chance of fixing it.

  “Spit it out, Julia! What did he do? I’ll kill him if he hurt you.”

  I shook my head. “Not like that… It’s just… Okay…” I slumped. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to do anything but climb into bed somewhere and rest.

  “Sometimes I just think we’re too young to be this… serious. I don’t know. I love Crank, but… Okay, back in June, we flew out to Vegas to meet Allan for the beginning of the tour.”

  “I remember.”

  I began to tell Carrie the story in halting steps as I sat on the car mostly looking away from her, playing with my hair or scanning the slowly lightening sky.

  I’d never forget those first impressions when we had arrived in Vegas. For several weeks prior to our departure, I’d been working on the phone and via email with Preston Reeve, the manager for Allan Rourke’s band. Preston had been helpful every step of the way, and that was a big deal, because even though I’d done a good job managing Crank’s band so far, I didn’t really know what I was doing. Preston had been the manager for the Rourke band for more than ten years. He knew the ropes; he knew how to deal with the venues, the hotels and the record labels. Most of all, he was a professional, and so it wasn’t a big deal or a big surprise when he met us at the airport. At least not to me.

  Crank, however, had been surprised. Not once during the planning of our flight to Vegas, or the planning of the tour itself, had he ever inquired about our travel arrangements, where we’d be sleeping, or what we would be doing. He had placed all of that in my hands as a matter of course, and I was okay with that. After all, it was my job as manager of the band. Apparently, he had found it alarming that the moment we walked out of the security gates at the Las Vegas airport, we were approached by Preston.

  Preston was a big, bold guy. Just like me, he’d attended Harvard, though he graduated in ‘93, ten years before I did. He wore a blue suit coat with an open-collared white shirt and faded jeans and had a single turquoise stud in his left ear. The earring was set off by short, cropped brown hair and pale blue eyes. To anyone else, he looked cool and professional and friendly.

  He approached with an easy, lopsided grin and a warm, firm handshake. “Julia? Crank? I’m Preston Reeve.”

  He and Crank sized each other up on the spot and I could tell neither of them liked what they saw, but we managed to get moving safely toward ground transportation. We picked up our bags and headed out to the waiting Lincoln Town Car, where Preston got into the front passenger seat and Crank and I slid into the back.

  “So, Allan says you guys are fantastic,” Preston said to Crank.

  Crank grunted, then said, “You’re one of his guys?”

  I rested a hand on Crank’s knee. “Preston manages the Rourke band. He’s been a big help while we planned the tour.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Crank said, raising his eyebrows. “Preston, where you from? I can’t place your accent.”

  “Connecticut,” Preston answered smoothly. “I went to Harvard, but then headed out west… I always wanted to be in entertainment.”

  “Harvard, huh?” Crank said. He looked distinctly uncomfortable. “So you and Julia must ha
ve a lot to talk about. While you’re being…uh…helpful.”

  I couldn’t help it. I rolled my eyes. Crank’s nostrils actually flared a little.

  Preston was oblivious to Crank’s mental breakdown. “A little,” he replied. “Things change a lot in just ten years, but still, there’s a bond between people who attended there.” He gave me a warm smile. Priceless.

  “Right. I was a pit rat,” Crank said. “I wouldn’t know nothin’ about that.”

  “Crank,” I murmured.

  “That’s right, you’re from Boston. What clubs did you play there?”

  Crank shrugged. “Metro. Bill’s.”

  “Not the Rat?”

  “Rat’s closed down, has been for years. They put in a frickin’ hotel.”

  The conversation drifted from there, not openly hostile, but not easy either. Matters stayed the same for the next couple of days. The band was busy doing final rehearsals and then on Saturday actually prepping at the stadium. The stadium. Because it was a sold out show—more than 35,000 seats sold at the Sam Boyd Stadium. Up until that Saturday night, the biggest show Morbid Obesity had ever played was for maybe a thousand people.

  I had what seemed like a million details to attend to. Vendors. T-shirts. Roadies and the placement of equipment. Dressing rooms for the band. Someone had spilled a case of beer on an open case of dynamic mics. Thankfully, old-style dynamic mics could stand up to almost any abuse and they’d be okay, once they were cleaned and dried out… But in the meantime, I had to scramble to find an open music store to replace the mics until they were working again. I was running around like a maniac and I most definitely didn’t have time to babysit Crank, who’d suddenly become a giant dick the moment Preston arrived.

  I scheduled short meetings with Preston at 2 pm and again at 7 pm so we could be sure any last minute details were covered. I had to meet with him because nothing was going right. But Crank? He didn’t like that idea at all.

  At our two o’clock meeting, Preston made a useful suggestion. “You guys are used to moving around on tiny little stages in clubs,” he pointed out. “And you can see it here. We’ve got this giant stage, and they aren’t using it.”

  I watched the band, nodding. It was true. Right now the band was in the middle of the fourth or fifth run-through of Crank’s newest song, and on this huge stage, they looked like they were all huddled together in a tiny corner.

  Ten minutes later, the band had finished their set and Preston had gone on to other things. I climbed up on the stage and gathered the band. Crank was sweaty, grinning, and they all looked exhilarated. Crank and Serena fist bumped.

  “Great practice!” I said.

  “I’ll say.” Serena had an easy grin on her face.

  “I’ve got one suggestion,” I said. “Can we spread it out a little? We’ve got a huge stage here, let’s use it.”

  Serena looked thoughtful and started to nod, but Crank cocked an eyebrow. “Is that Preston’s suggestion?”

  I blinked. “It is, but he’s right. From up in the seats, it looks a little weird with the band crammed into just one section of the stage.”

  “I didn’t know we were taking directions from the other band’s manager,” Crank responded.

  Serena’s eyebrows bunched together. “I think it’s a good suggestion, Crank.”

  He just rolled his eyes. “Whatever. If you think we should go changing stuff at that last minute, then let’s do it.”

  As I recounted the story for Carrie now, two months later, she grimaced. “Crank was jealous?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. He was a complete dick about it, too. And the thing was, there was nothing to be jealous of. Preston is so not my type. I mean he’s all…preppy…and Harvard…and…”

  Carrie tilted her head and raised one eyebrow. “Nothing like you at all.” Then she smirked.

  I sighed. “All right! So yeah, we had a lot in common. But that didn’t mean Crank got to be a complete shit about it.”

  “What did he do?”

  You Wouldn’t Understand (Crank)

  It had been a nice, cool summer. I thought.

  As it turns out, if you’re walking twenty miles through the desert with the rising sun glaring angry rays down on your neck, it feels like you opened a hot oven and walked right in. I don’t think we’d gone more than a mile before I was dripping sweat and my arms were aching from carrying the gas can.

  The plastic gas can. Which probably didn’t weigh more than fourteen ounces.

  Another thing, just for future reference. If you’re going to walk twenty miles through the desert while wearing combat boots, make sure they have functioning laces. Because what looks cool on stage or walking from the car to the nightclub doesn’t feel so cool when your skin starts to get rubbed raw.

  I guess it wasn’t really desert. Close enough, though. Sand and scrub. Dust. At first glance, it looked like the fields on either side of the road were under cultivation…at least everything grew in more or less neat rows. They don’t do that in nature, do they? I didn’t want to ask Sean. I mean, there’s no stupid questions. But, maybe there are. Anyway. We kept walking.

  It was about half an hour into our walk when Sean spoke. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “Are you and Julia breaking up?”

  “What makes you ask that?” I wanted to dismiss it. I wanted to smirk and say, “Oh, hell no, what gives you that crazy ass idea?” Instead, I felt a hole open up in my chest.

  “You’re always fighting with each other,” he said matter-of-factly. “I don’t understand why. I like Julia.”

  I sighed. And kept walking.

  “I do too, Sean. I mean, I love her.”

  We walked in silence a little further, and then he said, “You should tell her that.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because there’s stuff that happened that you don’t understand, Sean.”

  He kicked the sand and kept walking beside me. “I see. Because: reasons.”

  “What?”

  He shrugged. “That’s what people always say when they don’t have a rational reason for their behavior. Because: reasons. You’ve got reasons, but you won’t talk about them. Because they don’t really exist.”

  Irritation swept over me. “Or maybe I just don’t want to talk about them, Sean. It’s not really your business. She’s my girlfriend,” I reminded him.

  “And she’s my best friend,” he replied.

  I swallowed. And kept walking. And sighed. Sean reminding me that she was his best friend was like getting punched in the stomach. “It’s all confused,” I said.

  “What’s confused? Just be nice to each other.”

  I swallowed. Uncommon wisdom. But how do you get there?

  “I don’t know if she’ll ever be nice to me again, Sean.”

  “Why not?”

  So I told him, starting from the moment I realized she was on the phone with him three times a day for the two weeks leading up to our departure, the moment that arrogant prick Preston Reeve started hitting on Julia right in front of my eyes on the way from the airport in Vegas, the way they crowded close together during their multiple meetings at the stadium.

  “Julia would never cheat on you.”

  “That’s not the point,” I replied. “He’s a total player. She let him just…hang all over her.”

  The sun was fully over the horizon now, the sky a beautiful bright blue.

  “Truck coming,” Sean said.

  Thank God.

  I stepped to the side of the road. The truck was coming up behind us, a large one, and I could hear the whine of its diesel engine as it got closer and closer. I waved my arms. Even if the truck was only going part of the way to the gas station, it would be a huge help. This was taking forever. For a second, I thought the truck was going to slow down. As it got larger and larger, closer and closer, I saw a look of alarm pass across the faces of the two me
n in the cab. The driver had short cropped hair and blue eyes, and sneered at me. Then they accelerated, the truck tossing dust and gravel on us as it passed.

  “Huh,” I said.

  “Why wouldn’t they stop?” Sean asked.

  “I thought they were going to,” I responded. But then I looked down at my combat boots, spiked leather jacket and torn up t-shirt. I knew why they hadn’t stopped.

  My fault.

  We continued on. A few minutes later, Sean spoke again. “I still don’t think you make any sense about Julia. You said you know she wouldn’t cheat on you. So why were you angry?”

  “Jesus, Sean. Will you drop it?”

  “No.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Because he was like a giant dick walking around in a suit. I couldn’t breathe near him without smelling racquetball and polo shirts and expensive cologne. That guy…he’s all fucking success and WASP and shit.”

  Sean raised an eyebrow. “We’re so much cooler than that.”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  I shook my head. “Sean…don’t you think he’s more her type? I mean, he went to Harvard, for Christ’s sake!”

  “Did she say that?”

  “No!” I scoffed. She didn’t have to. “Just… Just leave it alone, all right?”

  “Crank, why would I leave it alone? She’s my friend. You love her. I love her. Mom and Dad love her.”

  “But she doesn’t love me anymore, Sean.”

  “Why not?”

  I shook my head. Frustrated. Angry. And from the looks of it, we still had something like eighteen miles to go. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Oh yeah? Would that be because I have Asperger’s, Crank? Because if it is, you can shove it up your ass.”

  I stopped, stunned. “What?”

  “You heard me. I am so sick of you treating me like I’m broken somehow.”

  “Sean, you’re not broken.”