The Debt

by Tyler King

  “Open yourself. Meet someone. You deserve to be happy. Don’t let him keep that from you forever. Maybe if you tried, you could find a way to get past whatever it is that you’re afraid of.”

  She got up, squeezed my shoulder, and walked out. I stared after her for a while before it sank in. Hadley wasn’t offering me a way back to her; she was pointing the way out. I would have preferred she slap me again.

  So that’s how it happened. Hadley set me loose. After the four months it took my dick to heal, I started trying to find anything compatible in any other woman that would take my mind off her. But my heart wasn’t in it. Instead, I found a parade of coeds willing to engage in hollow sex while I tried to put back together the fractured pieces of myself.

  Chapter 14

  There was no desire in me to go to class today. After sitting through another self-aggrandizing lecture from Dr. Richardson, I was just fucking bored by the idea. Besides, I needed to head over to Vaughn’s shop to pick up the new pedal I’d ordered and the drumheads that Corey had been waiting on. So I blew off the rest of the day. My pocket buzzed as I crossed the lawn toward the parking lot. It was a text from Hadley.

  I’m over it for the day. Lunch?

  Sometimes that girl could read my mind.

  Me too. Meet at the car.

  When Punky arrived, I was waiting in the car with the radio on and the engine running. She tossed her bag in the backseat, collapsed into the passenger side with a huff, and slammed the door behind her. I watched, careful not to laugh at her, while she wrestled with the seat belt. She was in rare form, and I worried for the well-being of whomever had pissed her off today.

  “You okay?” I turned down the radio, looking her over to figure out what kind of angry this was.

  “Dr. Shaw called my charcoal collection plebeian and pedantic. I’m not even sure those two things can happen at the same time. It’s fucking charcoal. I’m not using a lightsaber to carve statues, for fuck’s sake. But maybe I should have put a bigger set of tits on the trees in my landscape. Maybe then he’d appreciate the view. Oh, but Natalie is a genius, because she wears short skirts, flashes her baby cave, and leans over her drawing desk with her enormous tits hanging out!” Hadley punched the dashboard. “Damn it!” She grabbed her fist, curling her entire body around it.

  “Easy there, Thundercat.” I pried her hand away, holding it in both of mine while I inspected her knuckles and fingers. “You might want to think twice about doing that again. You’re not much of an artist without your dominant hand.”

  “Same goes for musicians.”

  “Touché.”

  I kept rubbing her hand between mine. She didn’t try to pull away, and I didn’t offer to surrender her appendage.

  “So why did you call it quits for the day?” she asked.

  “Professor Monroe called my jazz composition plebeian and pedantic?”

  Punky scowled and stuck her tongue out at me.

  “Bored. And trying to write my jazz composition for the final gave me a headache.”

  “How’s your set coming?”

  “It isn’t.”

  “How come?”

  I shrugged, watching my fingers trace over hers. “I guess I just suck at it.”

  “Wish I could suck that well at anything.”

  I looked up, raising an eyebrow to Hadley’s choice of words.

  She rolled her eyes, pulling her hand back from mine. “Shut up, stupidhead. I want Thai food.”

  “Perfect.”

  Hadley turned up the radio. Jack White blared just for her like the universe had aligned to help alleviate her bad mood. I gunned the engine and tore ass out of the parking lot as the breeze filled the car. Punky bobbed her head, chanting along with the lyrics. Watching her out of the corner of my eye, I felt my own irritation subside.

  * * *

  Jupiter sat in a small strip mall, sandwiched between a Thai restaurant and a sketchy massage parlor. Vaughn, a weathered roadie who had toured with almost every major rock act since the end of disco, was the only man I trusted to work on my guitars.

  Vaughn had sold me my prized Gibson Les Paul. The same one he’d taught me to play on. My dad had brought me in here almost every Sunday for lessons as a kid. At first, Vaughn had terrified me, a big man covered in tattoos. I was afraid of most men back then. But I grew to trust him. It was a bit like therapy, which perhaps had been my father’s intent all along.

  The door chimed as Hadley and I entered. She didn’t wait for a word from me before she took off toward the back of the store to browse on her own. Jupiter carried everything. The front of the store held guitars, drums, and the usual suspects. In the back were the makings of a full symphony orchestra. If Vaughn didn’t have it, he’d find it for you.

  At the front counter, his seven-year-old grandson, Kyle, sat flipping through a copy of Rolling Stone. Every inch of wood was covered in scrawl and Sharpie graffiti. My name was on there somewhere, along with Hadley’s and a drawing she’d done of us as cartoon lobsters when we were ten.

  “Hey, little man.” I gave Kyle a high five as I leaned against the front counter. “What’s the good word?”

  “I can play ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit,’ but my mom says I’m too loud.” Kyle reached up and pushed his curly black hair out of his eyes as he fingered the callus builder in his palm. “She says I’m not allowed to sing that song.”

  “Why not?”

  “She says libidio is a bad word.”

  “You mean libido?”

  “Yeah. That.”

  I laughed, looking up at Vaughn as he pulled my new pedal out of the packaging. He was a huge man with long gray hair pulled back into a ponytail—but bald on top—and a beard to match. Faded old-school tattoos covered his hairy arms, the black ink having turned green some time during the Clinton administration.

  “What does libido mean?” Kyle asked.

  “Uh-uh, MacKay.” Vaughn pointed one thick finger at me. “You fill his head with this shit, and then I have to hear about it from his mom. Lock it up.”

  “Sure, but you say shit in front of him.”

  Kyle was a damn guitar phenom. His grandpa couldn’t have been prouder. Vaughn’s only child, however, was less than thrilled. The metalhead was cursed with a daughter who was more Beyoncé than Joan Jett. Such a shame.

  “He hears worse than that at school. Save the vocabulary lesson for puberty, okay?”

  I winked at Kyle, taking a moment to inspect the pedal. Vaughn set it back in the box and put everything in a bag for me.

  “You still looking for a replacement in your band?” Vaughn asked.

  “Why, is Kyle ready to start gigging? I’m not sure I can afford him.”

  “Can I? That would be awesome!”

  “You can’t play in bars until you’re thirteen,” Vaughn answered.

  I bit back a laugh as Kyle deflated.

  “Why aren’t you in school, little man?”

  “Dentist appointment. Mom let me skip the rest of the day to hang out with Grandpa.”

  “You busy supervising, or you want to jam for a while?”

  Kyle’s eyes lit up.

  “Whatever you want,” Vaughn told him. “Pick something off the wall.”

  Kyle knew what he wanted. He went straight for the baby blue Fender Mustang, the same kind Kurt Cobain had often played. This kid had been born in the wrong decade. I pulled down the Jag hanging next to it. Together, we found a spot in the amp room and plugged in, sitting on a pair of stools. By ear, Kyle tuned his guitar until it sang in perfect pitch. Then he cranked up the distortion.

  “You take lead,” I told him. “I’ll do rhythm.”

  He propped one foot on the rung of the stool and counted us off. It amazed me to watch him. He never looked at his fingers, knew where they were at all times. They slid so effortlessly over the strings.

  I sang as we played together. It felt good, jamming for the fun of it with a kid who was still just discovering the music and learning abou
t himself as a musician. He had that awe about him. Everything was still fascinating and new. I envied that. It was the way I had felt when I was first discovering the piano.

  “I wish I could sing like you,” he told me. “I don’t sound that good.”

  “Practice. In rock, you don’t have to have a good voice, just an interesting one. Besides, your voice is going to change as you get older.”

  He plucked at the strings, looking around the room. “She’s pretty,” Kyle said, and nodded over my shoulder.

  “Yes, she is.”

  Hadley had a blue bass guitar in her lap, the same one she always messed around with when we came in here. Her dark hair was tossed over one shoulder, her bottom lip between her teeth. She was beautiful. My fantasy incarnate.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Hadley.”

  “Is Hadley your girlfriend?”

  “No. She’s my...We live together.”

  “But you like her.”

  I narrowed my eyes at the kid. “We’re friends.”

  “So she’s your girl...friend.” He gave me goofy smile.

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll let her be my girlfriend.”

  Clever fucker.

  “She’s too old for you.” I set the guitar down and used the opportunity to steal another glance at Hadley while she wasn’t looking. “And I think you might be too young to start dating.”

  “I think she likes you.”

  “Oh, yeah? And why should I take the word of a little kid?”

  “Because she keeps looking at you and smiling,” he said. “Or she’s smiling at me and wants to be my girlfriend.”

  “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”

  Kyle laughed, pushing his hair back over his forehead. “You totally libido her.”

  * * *

  On a stool in the garage, I sat staring at utter shitfuckery scrawled across the loose pages. When we’d gotten home from Jupiter, I had felt less irritable and disjointed. Something as simple as jamming with the kid, and a nice meal with Punky, had settled me somewhat. When I’d sequestered myself in here to work, I had every intention of making headway on my jazz composition for class. However, my headache returned with a vengeance, my eyes couldn’t focus on the page, and the only music occupying my mind was the elusive tune I couldn’t pin down.

  Nothing. Hours of staring at black marks on straight lines, and I had nothing. Worse than nothing. At one point, I wrote sixteen bars of “Cocaine Blues” before it dawned on me that I was not Bob Dylan. Eighteen bars of some Thom Yorke song.

  Was it possible that I had exhausted my supply of talent? Was there a finite number of notational combinations that my consciousness could produce?

  In the 1850s, Robert Schumann believed he was transcribing dictation from Schubert’s ghost. He called the result Variations on a Theme. At night, he heard choirs and the orchestrations of Beethoven.

  Didn’t David Berkowitz claim that he received orders to carry out his murders from the demon that possessed his neighbor’s dog? What was the difference between listening for the song stuck in your head and a psychiatric hallucination?

  A .44 Bulldog revolver, apparently.

  Fuck it.

  I abandoned the music and walked back inside the house. From the kitchen, I grabbed a glass of water and popped a couple Advil for my headache. Still my vision was blurry around the edges. The shapes and colors in my periphery bled together in liquid waves. Maybe it was the Thai food, but my stomach fought me to keep my lunch down.

  It was after 7:00. Hadley would normally have started pulling dinner together by now. Thinking that maybe she was in her own creative cocoon, I headed toward the stairs to check on her. Passing through the foyer, I glanced out the window and saw an unfamiliar pickup truck in the driveway.

  “Andre, don’t.”

  My attention jerked behind me to the hallway at the back of the house. It led to my dad’s study, the master bedroom, and the music room. My breathing stopped as I listened for confirmation. I had learned this lesson once before: Thou shalt not barge into rooms at the sound of Hadley’s voice. Thing was, sound carried in this house.

  “I mean it. Don’t.”

  I headed down the hallway.

  “What’s the big deal?”

  “Please get up. We should—”

  My feet stopped at the open door to the music room when I heard middle C ring out of my Bösendorfer piano. There he sat, the new Punkyfucker perched on the bench where my mother had died. I hadn’t set foot inside this room, hadn’t even looked inside, since that day.

  Hadley’s large brown eyes found mine like a startled deer. “Josh.”

  “Get out.”

  Andre turned around, looking me over. “Hey. I hope you—”

  “Andre,” Hadley warned. “Don’t.” Her eyes remained locked with mine, a tinge of knowing fear in her expression.

  “Get out,” I repeated. “Now.”

  “He didn’t know.”

  Hadley stepped toward me, but I backed away.

  “I just wanted to show him my—”

  “No.” I snapped my eyes shut and took a deep breath. My chest tightened. “What right do you think you have to be in here? This is my goddamn house.”

  “I’m sorry. I only wanted—”

  “She was my mother, Hadley. Do you get that?”

  “What’s your problem, man? Take it easy.”

  I ignored Andre, leveling my glare at Hadley’s shell-shocked eyes.

  “You live here,” I told her. “But this doesn’t belong to you. You’re just my tenant until you get your shit together and move on.”

  “Calm the fuck down.” Andre stood, walking through Hadley’s attempt to stay him. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “You play house with me, but this isn’t your family,” I said. “You cook and clean and pretend you’re her, but you’re not. Get over yourself, and get your dipshit fuck buddy out of my house.”

  “Listen, asshole—”

  “Andre, no.” Hadley turned her back to me and pressed both hands against Andre’s chest. “I’m sorry, but you need to go.”

  “What? You’re shitting me. No. Come on. I’ll take you to Tom’s.”

  “No,” she said. “Please, just go. Please.”

  Andre scowled as he looked at me over her shoulder; then he stormed out. I waited until I heard the front door slam behind him.

  “Stay out of here,” I warned her. “And keep your toys in your own room.”

  * * *

  During the hour-long drive into the city, I seethed with unresolved rage. I should have just hit the asshole. By restraining myself, I had exacerbated the symptoms. Without an outlet—the three orders of Jameson hadn’t done shit besides dulling my headache—I was a walking bad decision in need of a trigger.

  In the greenroom at the Nest, I held a fistful of her hair in one hand. With my back pressed to the drywall covered in posters and graffiti, and my jeans open around my hips, I closed my eyes while the blonde sucked me off.

  There was no part of me that thought this was a good idea. I knew better. And yet…sometimes destruction begs destruction. Because Hadley knew what she’d done, she just didn’t expect to get caught. Perhaps she’d been going in there for years without me knowing. And that was fine, so long as I didn’t see it. But inviting an outsider to sit at Carmen’s piano…How was that not a blatant slap in the face? I had never gone so far out of my way to hurt her. Well…except maybe every day for the past four years I hadn’t told her the truth.

  Fuck.

  My head hit the wall with a groan as I felt the back of her throat constrict around me. I tried to come. Clenched my fists and squeezed my eyes shut. I was right there. So close. Just fucking do it! My muscles seized, skin crawling. Short, quick, stinging breaths choked my lungs.

  I yanked her off me and zipped my pants. Then I bolted for the door, barely able to see straight.

  In the alley behind the bar, I go
t ten feet before throwing up. The putrid brown slush that spewed out of me splashed on the pavement. Shaking, shivering, I stood doubled over against the brick wall, trying to get a handle on myself.

  I don’t know how long I was out there before I reasoned to go back inside and chase the memories away with another shot or three.

  At the end of the hall, just as the door to the women’s restroom swung open, I felt a strong surge of panic. Dark brown eyes and a disapproving scowl.

  Oh, fuck me.

  Trey pushed past Asha. He shoved me up against the wall and decked me right on the chin. I deserved that.

  * * *

  With a handful of ice wrapped up in a rag and held to my jaw, I sat back in a chair at our usual table. The Nest was far less crowded on a Tuesday night, and the jukebox playlist was shit. Asha glared through thick eyeliner with her arms crossed over her chest. Trey just looked disappointed. Well, disappointed and pissed off.

  “Hadley called,” he said. “Told me what happened.”

  “Help me out here. Did you sucker punch me because I went off on her for letting her dildo sit at my mother’s piano or because I got a blow job on a weekday?”

  I was met with a face full of ice water, courtesy of Asha.

  “You’ve got a lot of nerve,” she said.

  I wiped my face, flicking the excess water off my hands as Trey settled in to let me have it.

  “That girl gave up her whole life for you, and you tell her you’re her landlord? The hell, man? That’s Hadley, for fuck’s sake.”

  “What part of ‘my mother died in that room’ is so hard to understand?” My hands shook. Under the table, my knee bounced.

  “So that gives you the right to treat her like shit?”

  “She knew better.”

  “Give it a rest,” he shot back. “No one could live up to your rules and exacting standards at all times. There’s nothing but eggshells around you.”

  “And yet, here you are, tracking me down.” I tongued my lip ring, at least a little thankful that Trey hadn’t aimed for my mouth.

  “What’s that?” Asha leaned forward, grabbing my hand.