Featherless Bipeds (16 page)

In unison, Akim and I say, “No you don't.”

Nevertheless, Akim stomps on the accelerator, passes Jimmy T, then squeals the tires turning into a Tim Horton's. Jimmy T almost loses control of his car making the turn into the driveway at such a speed. Akim wheels the van into the drive-through lane.

When our turn at the order window comes, I order an extra-large large double-double coffee, and three raisin bagels (toasted, with double cream cheese).

“God,” yelps Akim, “I thought you weren't hungry.”

“I'm not. Just a little snack.”

“Geesh. Heartbreak hasn't hurt your appetite. How can you eat so much and stay so thin!”

“He's a drummer,” Tristan says. Then he shouts at the drive-through speaker. “A twenty-pack of Timbits, and one extra large French Vanilla cappuccino, please. With extra sugar. I wanna sugar up my cappuccino!”

“Yech!” says Akim, “I take my coffee black.”

And then I feel that weird tingle in the middle of my brain, or maybe it's more like an itch.
Sugar up my cappuccino.
Those words have such a nice ring to them.

I reach into my back pocket for the pencil stub I always keep there for such emergencies, and scan the floor of the van for something to write on. Practically every cubic inch of space around me is filled with amplifiers, drums, guitar cases and stands, but there isn't a scrap of paper anywhere. Desperately, as the girl at the Tim Horton's drive-through window is handing the goods through to Akim, I reach out and snatch the bag with my three bagels from her hand.

“He's pretty hungry,” Akim says to the girl.

I toss the bagels on the seat beside me, and begin smoothing the bag across my knee. I scribble:

Sugar up a cappuccino

I take my coffee black

Whew. Those words were nanoseconds away from escaping.

I read the words over a few times. Something is coming. A verse is emerging, like a baby bird pecking through its shell. Yes! I scribble the original two lines out of existence, and replace them with:

You sugar up your cappuccino

While I take my coffee black

You like to sit here by the window

I prefer a table in the back

Now I've got a metal picture of a man and woman in a small café . . . they are similar enough to be attracted to each other, but different enough to need some space, too. Something bigger is on its way. More words are going to follow these ones.

“What are you writing?” Tristan asks.

“Nothing.” I say.

Not yet. Not until it's finished. I pause to devour the bagels and gulp down the coffee.

“Akim!” Tristan says. “I think he's gonna live!”

Maybe I will.

The sounds of the road rumbling beneath us, the wind rushing through the open windows, the swoosh of cars passing, Akim and Tristan's conversations, they all fade away into nothing. Now it's only me and the words, which I coax and coerce until I've got this:

You sugar up your cappuccino

While I take my coffee black

You like to sit here by the window

I prefer a table in the back

I like the roar of the fire

You like the flicker of the candle flame

Lucky for us this place has got them both

Plus shelter from the rain

And in these little spaces

Lies the gravity

Keeps us from colliding

Keeps us from spinning apart

And in these little spaces

There's time to be

Time for you to be you

Time for me to be me

Sometimes I bug you

Sometimes you get in my way

Sometimes I hesitate before I call

But I could never throw your number away

'Cause you know the name of every daytime cloud

And I can name every constellation

I'm a nighthawk, you're an early bird

When we're together the sky is never a stranger

And in these little spaces

There's time to be

Time for you to be you

Time for me to be me

But then these little spaces

Between the two of us

Leave me wanting less of you and me

And a little more of us

Satisfied, I fold the scribble-covered bag into neat quarters, and slide it into the front pocket of my jeans. There's some kind of truth in there somewhere.

I've already got a name for this newborn song. “Little Spaces”. When we get back home again, I'm going to get together with Akim and Tristan to record a quick version on our 8-track recorder, and then I'm going to slide it under Zoe's door. She told me to never talk to her again, or call, or write. She didn't say I couldn't slide a song into her life.

There is the sound of gravel crunching under the tires of the van. I look up through the windshield, and in big, flickering pink neon letters is the single word “BAR”. This must be our destination. I throw open the sliding door of the van and step onto the gravel, feeling like Clint Eastwood as he throws open the swinging saloon doors to begin the climactic gunfight. This feeling quickly dissolves, though, when it occurs to me that the building before me is not a whole lot larger than the van from which I've just emerged. Another hole-in-the-wall. How does Jimmy get us booked into dumps like this?

There is one of those light-up mobile signs perched beside on the roadside, which reads:

SAT RDAY
2 BUCK DRAFT
ALL NITE
MEAT RAFFLE

Nothing on the sign about us playing here tonight. Great.

The Mercedes slides into the driveway, and Lola and Jimmy T climb out. It looks like Lola has forgiven him for his flirtations at the last gig, because they're groping at each other again. After enjoying a couple of handfuls of Lola's breasts, Jimmy rams his hands in the pockets of his three-hundred-dollar jeans and strides over to where Akim, Tristan and I are standing.

“Nice place, Jimmy T,” Akim says.

“Well, it looks smaller than they made it out to be,” he admits, “but they told me the stage is pretty big. And Ray, the guy I talked to on the phone the other day, says they can pack in a few hundred on a good night.”

The rest of us look incredulously at the tiny building.

“A few hundred
molecules
?” Tristan grumbles, kicking at the parking lot gravel. Tristan doesn't even bother removing his video camera from its case. He figures nobody will want to remember this place.

“But wait! Here's some good news, guys,” Jimmy says, pointing at the mobile sign by the road, “Beer is only two bucks on Saturdays!”

Then Jimmy's life-is-great grin goes flat.

“Hey,” he says, as he continues to look at the sign, “That sign is supposed to say ‘Featherless Bipeds — Live Rock ‘n' Roll — One Night Only'. I
told
'em that was what we wanted the sign to say.”

“Maybe they didn't have enough letters for that,” offers Akim.

“Well, no point standing around,” says Lola, in a matter-of-fact way. “Let's get going, boys. A gig is a gig.” She heaves the bass amplifier out of the van and carries it through the dilapidated back door hand-painted with the words “
Deliverys and Stage Enterance
”.

Grudgingly, I grab a PA speaker from inside the van, and lug it up the warped, spongy stairs into the bar. As I heft a second speaker inside, it occurs to me that
this
is what bar bands
really
get paid for: driving long distances to gigs, eating crappy bar food, staying in gross hotel rooms, lugging enormous chunks of sound equipment up and down rickety back-entrance stairs. Playing the music is the fun part. I'd do that part for free.

The interior of the bar is cramped, brown, virtually lightless, and smells like a two-dollar cigar floating in a plugged urinal. Jimmy wasn't lying, though — the stage
is
a comfortable size. It's covered in broken chairs and old casino gaming equipment, and looks as if it hasn't been touched by a live band (or a
broom
) since Elvis ate his last hot dog, but it
is
big enough for all four of us to set up on. The whole bar itself, however, is not much larger than the garage we rehearse in.

“Guess we won't be needing the extra amp after all,” says Akim.

“Or t he subwoofers,” adds Tristan, under his breath, carrying chunks of debris from the stage to make room for our sound equipment. “This old joint might collapse if we start pumping out too much volume.”

“The management definitely misrepresented things to me over the phone,” says Jimmy T. “Perhaps I should have a word with them.”

“Be nice!” says Lola, patting his ass. “We still want to get paid.”

“Never worry,” grins Jimmy T.

We all worry when he says that. Jimmy T is now the proud owner of two false front teeth, acquired after the owner of a roughneck tavern tried to feed Jimmy the headstock of his guitar after a difference of opinion over the band's beer tab.

From their perches beside the bar, a half dozen grey-haired, overall-clad regulars watch us silently with bloodshot Basset Hound eyes. Behind the bar, seeming oblivious to just about everything, is a rumpled-looking, shadow-eyed waitress. She chews on a cheek full of gum. Jimmy T approaches her.

“Good afternoon, madam,” he says, with his a smooth, deep deal-making voice. “Would you be so kind as to tell me where I might find either Ray or Jay?”

“Who?” she says between chews.

“The owners of the establishment. Are they around?”

“Oh” she snorts, looking up at the cobwebbed ceiling. “Nope. He ain't around.”

“Okay, thanks,” chirps Jimmy. “Could you let me know when one of them arrives?”

The barmaid just shrugs.

Seated behind Jimmy, around one of the few tables, are six older ladies, wearing large frilly hats and dressed in what they would probably call their “Sunday Best”. They are downing straight shots of rye whisky like they are trying to set some kind of record. Jimmy T sits down at their table and strikes up a conversation. In Jimmy's eyes, talking to young good-looking women is better than talking to old, hardened ones, but talking to old women is still better than carrying heavy sound equipment.

Lola waves to Jimmy T from the stage, then begins assembling the microphone stands. I begin putting my drums together. Akim hooks up the PA, then flips the switch that starts the speakers humming. Tristan, who has the best ear for sound balance, gets behind the mixing board, and Akim steps up to the first microphone, chanting, “Mike one, mike one, mike one . . . ”

“Is that
my
mike, Tristan?” Jimmy calls out from the table where he's been chatting with the older ladies and sucking back two-dollar drafts.

“Yup. Mike one is
always
yours.”

“More reverb,” says Jimmy.

Tristan rolls his eyes and walks over to the mixing board, only
pretending
to adjust the knob that will add more reverb to Jimmy's mike mix.

Akim also rolls his eyes, and continues, “Mike one, mike one, mike one . . . ”

“Is this better, Jimmy?” Tristan hollers over his shoulder.

Jimmy T flashes him a thumbs-up sign.

Both Akim and Tristan roll their eyes again.

On his way to mike two, Akim whispers to me, “What a wanker. What do the women see in him?”

Three-hundred-dollar pants is my guess.

Now I am seated behind my drums, my mike positioned in front of my mouth. To my left is Tristan, with his bass strapped on and tuned up. To my right is Akim, whose Stratocaster is plugged in and ready to scream. Lola stands just to the right of centre stage, gripping her microphone and ready to give it.

“Hey, Jimmy,” says Akim, more than mildly annoyed by now, “you wanna get up here and help us get this sound check over with?”

Jimmy downs the last of another two-dollar draft, nods at the rye-drinking ladies, and says, “Well, duty calls.” He swaggers up to the stage and tosses his guitar strap over his shoulder.

“This is a true story about a waitress,” I croon into the mike, “for the lovely lady behind the bar.” I am hoping that this one will thaw our icy barmaid somewhat — it's always good to have the staff on the band's side.

We play a spirited rendition of
Even the Waitress
, the rhythm of the bass and drums rattling the rickety stage and filling the air with dust.

Silence follows.

“Howd'ja like that!” demands Jimmy T, into his mike.

The three old ladies who still remain say nothing. They don't even move.

“Can yuh play any quieter than that?” the barmaid screeches. So much for charming
her
.

“Good enough,” Akim says. “Let's go find somewhere to eat. Unless you want to eat
here
. . . ”

Lola in particular looks horrified by that idea — I guess she's become accustomed to a lot of fancy restaurant food now that she's cohabitating with Jimmy T.

The five of us head for the empty van.

Our stomachs are now full with the surprisingly good fare served at a diner called “EAT” just outside the little town, and our spirits are brighter.

“Y'know, boys,” Akim says, “maybe this show will be okay. We've played other small places that have really filled up with people by the second or third set.”

“Remember that place on our Northern Ontario tour? So packed with people you could hardly move,” Tristan says. “What was it called? The Blackfly Tavern?”

“Ah, the Blackfly Tavern,” Jimmy T says dreamily, probably remembering the pleasant journey his hands made up the back of some local cheerleader's skirt. “What a fun night that was.”

Lola, who did not participate in that gig, squints at Jimmy T. “It better not have been
too
much fun,” she says.