Reaching out, Shaver took his own drink, brought it quickly to his lips, and downed it, splashing a few drops on his cheek in his haste, bandaged fingers fumbling for a solid grip. He felt Liz leaning in, slender arm snaking around his shoulders to draw him gently closer. He held the glass near his lips for a moment, closed his eyes against the harsh bite of the corn whiskey, then lowered the glass slowly and watched as Dexter freshened it, sliding Liz’s glass from the far side of his own.
“We don’t need him, Dex.” Shaver spoke very softly. “Just because he found a way to his music doesn’t mean he could do the same for us. We have to do it for ourselves.”
“Then why does it hurt so much?” Dex asked, spinning suddenly, eyes awash in pain. “Why is it that every time my mind replays that chorus, I itch like I’ve got the hives and my heart slows and skips. Fuck, some drummer, can’t even keep my own body in sync.”
“He stole it,” Liz cut in. “Didn’t you feel that?”
Shaver and Dex turned to her quickly.
“What do you mean?” Shaver asked. Something had tugged at his mind just then; her words had jostled it loose and tumbled him back. Exactly, stolen and claimed but not Brandt’s. Brandt didn’t play for Brandt anymore . . . that was the key. Brandt played pain. No way the fucker knew. The images, the funeral and the loss, Shaver’s father, none of it. Dexter knew, and Liz, because they’d gone there . . . lived it through him . . . but not Brandt. Brandt had reached out and stolen that melody, those notes, bending them into some sort of psychic hook and trying to use it to latch onto Shaver’s brain.
“Fuck,” he said. “And I almost went. What would have happened to me? What would have happened to the song?”
Dexter seemed less than convinced, but he busied himself with the bottle and the glasses, lifting Shaver’s and handing it to him, then Liz’s as well.
“You better finish some of this,” he said, voice low. “Don’t leave it all for me.”
Shaver nodded and held the glass, thinking. He could still hear the haunting strains of country-blues shivering through his mind, but he knew the answer wasn’t that easy. It wasn’t a Hank Williams cover tune they were after. It wasn’t something you could sit back and figure out. It was something to be hunted and taken, discovered and overcome. He felt the old familiar burn slipping through his nerves, felt his fingers twitch, and quickly downed the whiskey. It was going to be hell not playing, but he knew now that he had to heal.
Dexter had lowered his own glass again, empty, fingers finding the surface of the table and tapping in gentle, nervous rhythms. His head was lowered, in thought or pain or both, and his eyes were closed. Shaver didn’t break the silence, choosing instead to lean back against Liz’s shoulder and rest. He tossed back the second glass of moonshine with a quick flourish, its white-hot bite and spreading warmth seeping through him and melting him back into the moist aftermath of the shower and Liz’s embrace. Subtle shift and he felt her swallow, knew she had finished hers first, tensing against his back for an instant, then sighing softly.
Suddenly realizing that he was still wrapped in nothing but the towel, slipping off over his hips, he leaned forward, too-fast motion sending what still covered him sliding away. He dragged the jeans down and up, feeling the ridiculously large waist wrap about his thin frame, wishing for a belt, wishing he’d washed his own damned clothes and feeling more than a little foolish. Liz giggling behind him didn’t help, and he dragged the t-shirt roughly over his head. Dexter paid no attention, busying himself making an art of refilling the glasses, his motions smooth and rhythmic.
Before he knew it, Shaver was leaning back again, barefoot in too-big jeans, chest proclaiming “Jazz is Life,” to an uncaring world and downing his third drink. The soft lights of the room blurred at the edges and Liz’s body became more comfortable and pliant, molding to him as she reached around and grabbed her own glass again.
Things shifted. The comfort Shaver had felt when he first entered the apartment seeped back in, but this time it wasn’t his hand on the doorframe; it was the air, the sounds and sights, and the warm glow of the moonshine as Dexter continued to move his hands over the table, stacking and unstacking the glasses, tipping the bottle, crystal-drip fountain, now full, now gone, fire ebbing and flowing.
Too long since Shaver had had anything so strong. Last quick gulp and he settled back, closing his eyes, thoughts drifting to the rhythm of Dexter’s motion and Liz’s heartbeat. He floated, not focused on anything, caught up in a web of images that spun and wound about his thoughts. He slipped through memory to Sid’s, back over the days/weeks—heard Brandt play, felt Synthia’s resonating release, felt the cold rain wash his face and the music drain away. He saw his father’s eyes, just for a second, raised his arm, as if to reach out and touch, found his hand filled with cool glass and sloshed himself and the couch with cool liquor, drained it without thought, cursing himself as the hot rush washed the images away cleanly, burning in and down.
“I’ll find you,” he whispered to the lost face, the untouched fingers. “I’ll . . .”
Darkness slipped up and over, folding him tight and tugging him down. He felt Liz’s arms draped lazily over his chest, her hair soft on his cheek as they leaned together. The last thing he heard was the soft clink of glasses being stacked, rhythmically, steadily filled, and drained.
Brandt and Synthia had crawled in from the rain and dark, stripped, and slid into her bed without a word, curling around one another and drawing the blankets tight and close. No question of anything but sleep.
Brandt’s shivering had been hours in stopping, cold through to the heart, drained and his head pounding to the steady rhythm of pain denied. He’d not let them free, not let the notes pour out as they should, and all his strength had been spent on forcing his fingers to other notes.
Shaking, sweat pouring from him to dampen the sheets, teeth chattering and his mumbled apologies to Syn, whispered images. “This must be what it’s like,” he told her, “when you detox.”
Her voice, soothing and soft. Shushing him like a child, long fingers stroking the sweat from him gently; more times than he could count or remember she had slipped away, only to return with a damp cloth, curling around him and holding him close. Some time in the night the world and the pain slipped away. Perhaps it was the first finger of light, crawling over the skyline and announcing the dawn, that released him. The pain slid and emptied back inside, compact and bearable, an icy ball of barbed-wire lodged in his gut. He didn’t dream.
When he woke, Syn was curled over him, her hair soft on his shoulder and one arm draped around him protectively. He didn’t want to move. His head pounded, his throat was dry, and his eyeballs ached. He had to piss so bad he was bent near-double, but he did not want to disturb her. His mind was clear enough to remember. She’d been there, taken care of him. He lay still as long as possible before slipping very carefully from beneath her arm. Syn rolled away with a sigh, the sheet drawing back to reveal the soft swell of one breast.
Brandt stood, naked, watching her for a moment, wondering. How they’d gotten to this point. Where they were going. Why he was such a fucking asshole. Turning, he left the room, moving to relieve the most pressing of nature’s emergencies, his mind slipping ahead to coffee without shifting gears.
He was halfway into his second cup when Syn rolled over with a groan and called out.
“Brandt?”
He smiled, rising and pouring another cup. “Cream? Sugar?”
“Black. Strong.”
Grinning, he picked up the cups and headed back into the bedroom.
“What time is it?” she asked groggily.
“No idea,” Brandt replied almost cheerfully. He sat on the edge of the bed, holding her cup for her until she could orient herself and rise to a sitting position. Without a bit of self-consciousness, she slid into a cross-legged position, naked, accepting the cup gratefully.
Brandt stared openly as sensations he’d somehow avoided through a long nig
ht pressed close to her body manifested themselves. Syn watched him over her coffee, turning slightly, and smiling.
“Seems not all of you is dead,” Syn said, sipping her coffee slowly and returning his gaze.
“No thanks to myself,” he answered. Very softly, he added, “Thank you.”
Syn’s smile widened, and then she frowned. “It isn’t like I have a choice.”
The cups somehow made their way safe and empty to the floor, and Brandt was beside her, pulling her close. He drew her head to his shoulder, stroked her hair. He leaned down, breath hot and moist on her ear as he whispered to her. “We all have choices, whether it seems so or not.”
She chose that moment to turn slowly and silence him with her tongue. She stroked up and down his chest with her long, tapered nails. For several hours, they managed to dull the pain. If any “ghosts” were watching, Syn’s eyes were closed. If the pain was too much, it was numbed and redirected by a different sort of need, and release. They slept again, eventually, limbs entwined and sheets pulled tight, a soft, impotent shield against a world they were only just realizing as their own.
Brandt dreamed. He was walking alone down a narrow road, winding through tall trees. It was dark, and the moonlight filtered oddly through the branches, criss-crossing the trail like a pane of broken glass. There was a brighter light ahead, not silver-white like the moonlight, but deep and red, the coals in a long-burning fire, hidden in the pit where you could stare until the world blurred around you and disappeared.
Somehow, he knew he had to reach that light, but there was no time. He sensed eyes, thousands of eyes, glowing in the shadows to either side of the trail, staring out from beneath bushes and through the knotholes in logs, watching him from the low-hanging limbs of trees. He ignored them, quickening his steps. His guitar case dangled from his hand now, and he glanced down, surprised, tried to concentrate on it. Had he had it all along? Where had it come from?
The glow distracted him, glinting off the silver hasps of the case, and he stumbled forward, loping now, long, measured strides. The guitar case weighed him down, throwing off his rhythm and smacking painfully against his thigh. He heard his heartbeat echoing, thudding painfully, and his breath shortening.
Then it wasn’t just his heart, but drums, huge, resonant drums, pounding faster and faster. Voices, hissing in and out among the slamming, nerve-jarring beats, licked at his senses. He couldn’t make out the words, but images formed, blocking his view of the trail, and the light.
A young woman, withered, lying in her bed and wasting away. Drool dribbled from her lip, down over her chin.
A young black man rose, sweat glistening on his forehead and bare arms as he lurched, leaning into a leather harness, moving only a step before a long, leather lash bit deep into his shoulder blades, dropping him to his knees.
Knees, a multitude kneeling, voices chanting softly around a long, open trench, men in strange robes, eyes downcast, praying over a pile of naked flesh, arms, faces.
Brandt stumbled. The voices crashed in around him and he lunged, drawing the guitar up before him and falling, falling so long and far that he knew he’d reached the ground and passed through, guitar case clutched tightly, waiting for impact, waiting to shatter the instrument with his own weight. Waiting for the darkness to consume him and silence the pounding, the screaming, the searing pain burning him from the inside out.
Syn slapped him hard, shattering the dream world into tiny, brittle pieces, dropping away, leaving the light splintered, as the moonlight had been, drawing him to reality with a cold, focused snap of pain.
“Brandt. BRANDT! Let go, you’re hurting me!”
The words sank in. Brandt shook his head, realized he was clutching . . . not the guitar. Not falling. Syn was wrapped in his arms, trapped beneath him, squirming to free herself. She drew back for a second shot at his head and he released her, rolling to the side and slamming his hands to his head.
Syn watched in consternation, letting her intended blow fall softly, stroking his cheek. He lay, head back on his pillow, eyes covered by his hands, which were pressed too tightly, fighting for release from . . .
“What, Brandt? What is it?”
He shook harder, turning away from her, and she pulled the sheet back over them, curling against his back and letting her arm wrap around him. No words were spoken, but slowly Brandt calmed. The shaking went first, hard fever-breaking tremors that wracked his entire frame, shivering through her. She heard his teeth chatter, and she held him tighter, wishing for blankets that were not there, knowing it was not the cold that made him shake. Slowly this stilled to uneven breathing. Syn felt the subtle shift to a different sort of tremor.
Brandt cried in her arms, wetting the pillow, feeling the icy pain diminish slowly, releasing his limbs, freeing his nerves, one by one. The voices echoed in his head, softer now, subdued, but constant. Remember, they said. Always remember. Play.
Wally’s words echoed in the backbeat. Crossroads, or the crosshairs, one and the same, boy.
When he was still, at last, Syn shook him gently.
“You have to play, Brandt. You have to let it out.” Her voice choked a little. “It’s killing you.”
He shifted in her arms. A quick nod. No words, but he pressed back to her tightly.
Syn lay against him, sharing her heartbeat and her warmth, her hair soft against his shoulder. “Tonight,” she said softly.
Coffee, as always, brought a different slant. Brandt cupped his fingers tightly around the tall “Red-eye,” watching the swirling steam make mandala images on the surface. It was his second, and the caffeine was beginning to speak to his nerves and ripple through the tendons of his fingers. The voices were there, and the pain, but it was—different. The dream pain had smacked of retribution. This pain, the night’s pain, was expectant. Potential energy versus kinetic. Energizing rather than numbing.
Syn sat across from him, a double-mocha latte steaming in her mug. Her leg was pressed tightly against his beneath the table, comforting and persistently—there. She gazed over his shoulder at an empty corner of the coffee shop. Brandt knew what she was watching, just not who. It was the same everywhere. He’d always wondered why she spent so much time concentrating on empty shadows and staring at blank walls. His own predilection for whiskey and self-destruction had prevented any serious inquiry. Now he was coming to take the angels for granted.
Syn watched his cup carefully, ready to signal the waitress if the level sank below what she deemed acceptable. They had had nothing else to drink.
“Where are we going?” Syn asked him at last, words formed to mock the question echoing in his mind.
Brandt started to tell her he had no idea, but stopped short. Bad enough that one of them worried. “Not sure. Everything seems to fall into place of its own accord these days. I thought I’d hit the streets, walk, and see what happened.”
Syn’s eyes sparked. He thought she was going to go off finally, good-old-bad-old days revisited, and scream him into submission in front of everyone in the place, but she kept her peace. Different times, different Syn. Everything different.
Brandt tipped the mug, letting the coffee drain down his throat before it had a chance to grow cold or bitter. He rose, then, avoiding the same himself. His fingers itched, and the voices, always a low hum in the back of his mind, clamoring for attention. Five dollars on the table, a small trickle of change all that remained to slip back into his pocket as he turned toward the door and the growing darkness, Syn slipping in easily at his side. The bell over the door clanged as they slipped out.
The moon had risen, full and bright, lending an eerie illumination to the quiet streets. It was too late for business traffic, too early for the night to open its doors. Quiet time, and yet not quiet. Not exactly. From somewhere in the distance, against the fabric of reality, voices rose in song. Brandt stopped, cocking his head to the side, listening. It was coming from uptown, neighborhoods worse and worse as housing filtered away to concrete a
nd high-rise corporate monuments to “progress.” Nowhere Brandt would go, nor Syn. Nowhere where music would play.
Against the skyline, tall shadows danced, flickering with the wild abandon of images born of open flame.
“The park?” Syn asked the question, her words breaking the spell gently, not releasing Brandt, but including herself.
Brandt thought about it. Nodded. Without a word, he started forward, gripping his guitar case more firmly. No way to ignore the pull this time. They moved from street to street, sometimes waiting for the lights to shift, green “safe-man” blinking happily at them, inviting them to cross, more often ignoring the lights completely. There was almost no traffic, and even less as they moved inward. There were no clubs in this part of the city, no night-spots or coffee-clubs, no college kids sharing wine and philosophy, or businessmen drowning depression and martinis in unison. There was concrete, darkness, glittering glass, and mirrored windows stretching to the clouds, graffiti-decked fences and alleys so dark they might have emptied into another dimension.
Syn slid closer as they walked, her arm circling Brandt’s lower back and her hip soft against his, brushing as they moved. Neither spoke, but he saw her watching, always, followed her eyes more than once, but failed to see what she saw. He let his arm curl around her shoulder and pulled her closer.
The music grew steadily louder, shivering up and down Brandt’s spine. It wasn’t rock, not jazz, or anything he recognized at all. It was like being in church again, a small boy dressed to the nines in sharp-creased trousers and a bow tie, hundreds of adults gathering, raising their voices, harmony, discord, all at once joined in something that was not perfect, but was somehow very real.
They were two blocks from the park, and the shadows that had danced over the walls of the city loomed tall and menacing. There was a fire. Somehow, beyond city laws and safety ordinances, there was one hell of a bonfire in the park, and the music radiated from that point hungrily, drawing Brandt in, moth to that flickering flame.
Deep Blue Page 10
