Voice (10 page)

John made a face. “Like what?”

“I’ve got a few ideas,” Case said, “but you guys will have to help. Right now we’re a hard rock band trying to play what is basically folk music, and it’s like eating steak-flavored ice cream. Either one might work on its own, but together they’re a disaster.” She looked around the room. Danny caught her eye and nodded.

“Go on,” he said. John glared at him.

“I’ve got some ideas for rearranging the existing tunes. The lyrics are good, and we can use them to start with. You’re gonna have to be flexible though, and try some new things. Some of it’s going to be a lot more difficult than anything we’ve played together so far, so we’re going to have to bust our asses. Eventually, I’m going to bring some new stuff I’ve been working on, and you, John, are going to have to write the lyrics. It’ll be a partnership.”

“Not exactly like Lennon and McCartney,” he said.

“More like Elton John and . . . what’s his name.”

“Bernie Taupin,” John said angrily. “The guy who writes the lyrics is Bernie Taupin.”

She shrugged. “Well, what do you say?”

The room was quiet. Danny could see John’s face, fuming and hurt. There was no trace of his former good cheer. Case wasn’t exactly Captain Diplomacy, and she hadn’t pulled any punches. She probably
thought
she had, but that didn’t change the effect. John had started the band, and he’d put his heart into it, and here she was telling him that it wasn’t good enough, that he’d have to give up some of that ownership if he wanted it to succeed. It had to sting, and Danny felt bad for him.

Even so, Danny knew Case was right. He’d have more fun playing some more interesting music, and probably there would be more of an audience. He looked at the other three people in the room. John and Case were engaged in a staring contest, and Quentin was trying to make himself small enough to disappear.

John’s never going to forget this,
Danny thought.
Maybe he’ll forgive me, but he won’t forget
.

“I think we should give it a try,” Danny said.

He didn’t know if he expected an explosion or what, but he relaxed considerably when John nodded.

“Yeah,” John said softly. “Let’s try it.”

“Oh thank God,” Quentin said.

Everybody turned and looked at Quentin. There was a pause, Quentin flushed red, and then everyone in the room burst out laughing.

***

“All right,” John said, a grin slowly emerging on his face. “I wanna warm up with ‘Circular Firing Squad’ first.”

Quentin raised an eyebrow. That was a tough song, at the low end of John’s range and with a few large-interval jumps that he struggled with. He usually bitched like crazy if anybody wanted to run through it early—said he needed four or five songs to warm up to it.

Case shrugged. “If that’s what you want.”

“Hell, yeah. Hit it.” Half John’s grin broke free, twisting his mouth into a smirk.

Quentin shrugged and nodded at Danny, then Case.
Ready.

Case stomped her distortion pedal, unleashing the screaming squall of feedback that started the song.

Danny and Quentin came in together, tight and on cue. Quentin’s fingers rambled up and down the fretboard, and the low rumbling from his amp shook his chest. This was the best—that feeling of being locked in to the rhythm with Danny, the thunderous thud of the kick drum and the way it meshed with the throbbing bass when they were really on. Quentin smiled, nodding his head with the beat.

John hit the first line right between the eyes. He nailed it, maybe for the first time ever, and it sounded so good even Case looked up at him with a grin. He sounded
good
. The whole band sounded good, and Quentin played harder, getting into the groove.

By the second verse, though, that good feeling had started to sour. Something wasn’t right. John didn’t sound this good. John
never
sounded this good. He wasn’t performing flawlessly by any stretch of the imagination, but he was on pitch a lot more than usual, wasn’t fading out on the low notes, and there was a presence, an edge in his voice that cut to the heart of the song like a straight razor. It sounded
like
John, but it didn’t sound like
John
.

Quentin looked searchingly at John’s face, and John grinned with a crazy glee as he went into the chorus.

“If it’s nobody’s fault
Then it’s everybody’s fault
If it’s everybody’s fault
Then it’s mine

“But if I’m goin’ down
Everybody’s goin’ down
Said I’m not goin’ down alone this time
I’m not goin’ down alone this time
I’m not goin’ down alone.”

He ended the first chorus with a feral howl—a
perfect
feral howl, one that seemed like it belonged there in the song, had always belonged there, and they’d only been playing half the song until now.

Quentin eyed the door. He could run.
Wait, what? Why the hell would I do that?
He didn’t know. All he knew was that something was badly off in this room.

He missed the next change and stopped playing entirely. Danny and Case each stumbled to a halt in their own time. Everyone looked at him.

John was the only one he could see, though.

“You sound different,” Quentin said.

“I sound— Oh!” He chuckled. “My singing, you mean? I think the voice lessons are starting to finally pay off. A bunch of stuff just
clicked
over the last couple of days, you know? I’m flattered that you noticed!”

Quentin stared at him. What else could he say? He didn’t have any reasonable explanation for why John’s voice bothered him so much. It just felt . . . creepy. That explanation felt lame even inside the privacy of his own head. “Never mind,” he said. “Can we just start the song over?”

***

After the warm-up, Quentin calmed down a little. He still didn’t know what was wrong, but he wasn’t going to let it get to him. Hell, maybe John really did finally “get it,” like how sometimes you woke up in the morning suddenly understanding how to do quadratic equations or whatever. That explanation was about as satisfying as a hearty breakfast of air, but it was all he had.

They tackled Case’s new arrangements next. It was rough at first, but Quentin saw the potential immediately. Case brought a sleaziness, a swagger to the music that had been missing. Quentin had never learned new music very quickly and he struggled to keep up, but he didn’t feel too bad about it this time—even Danny was having a hard time remembering the new rhythms and parts to songs they’d been playing in a different configuration for months. They walked through the parts slowly at first, Case laying out the new arrangements, and then, as they learned, they strung them together until it almost sounded like music.

John wasn’t holding anything back. The new arrangements had an attitude lacking in the old four-chord beaters, and once John got over his initial, automatic distaste for each new piece, he really tried his damnedest to get into it. For the most part, he succeeded, bringing a new ferocity to the music. At one point he let out a primal yell that seemed to come all the way up from his heels. Evidently, John hadn’t expected that himself—the look on his face was so comical that Quentin had to look away to keep from laughing.

By the end of the night, three and a half hours of practice, they’d worked through three songs. The songs weren’t ready for performance yet, but they’d sparked something, and all four musicians in the room looked at each other with satisfaction. They packed it in for the night with a feeling of new possibility.

“Be right back,” John said. “I gotta get a drink.”

Case hoisted her guitar case and was almost out the door when Quentin spoke.

“Hey,” he said, looking from Case to Danny and back. “You guys think John’s okay?”

“Huh?”

“I mean—he went off with that weird old guy the other night, and he’s been acting funny. Do you think maybe—I don’t know. He’s on drugs or something?”

“I don’t think so,” Danny said, his voice hard.

Quentin felt heat rise to his face. “Yeah. You’re probably right,” he said. “Sorry to bring it up.” He rushed out of the room, head down and bass in hand.

***

“That was strange,” Danny said. He grabbed his sticks and went to catch up with John. Case stopped him on the way out the door with a hand on his shoulder.

He turned to her. His heart rate seemed to have doubled instantly.

“I don’t know what Quentin’s deal is,” she said, “but he’s on the right track. What
are
we going to do about John?”

His mind was sluggish, and the first answer that came to his mind was
he doesn’t have to know.
What came out was “Huh?”

“You know. He gets fucking terrified every time he’s onstage. The first time I heard him, I thought he sounded like an eight-year-old girl. He’s getting better, he really is—in here. The other night onstage, though? He sounded like an eight-year-old girl.”

Danny swallowed. She was so close that he could see green flecks in her brown eyes, so close that he could smell her sweat. It was sharp, biting, and yet somehow intensely enticing. He looked down at her hand, then back to her face.

She took her hand away and let it relax by her side, but she didn’t look away.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice husky. “It’s a problem. I’ll . . . I’ll think about it.”

He practically ran to catch up with John.

“Ow, shit!” Case yelled and dropped the short stick she’d been holding.

Erin looked at her with concern. “I’m sorry! Are you okay?”

Case grinned. “Yeah, fine. Just surprised. I didn’t expect you to hit me that hard.” They had been practicing knife disarms, and Erin had chopped down on Case’s wrist
hard
.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. If you’re going to do it, do it like you mean it. Just don’t forget that control is important, too.” She shook her hand. “Hope I can still play tonight,” she said, smirking.

Erin’s eyes widened. “Oh God. I’m really sorry.”

“I’m kidding. It’s okay. Really.” Erin didn’t look convinced. “We probably ought to get some arm guards or something, if we’re going to keep this up. Let’s take five and get a drink,” Case said. She went over to the shade near the side of the building, sat on the asphalt, and opened the bottle of water she’d left there earlier. Erin sat next to her.

Training had been going well, Case thought. It had only been a few weeks since they started, but Erin was an avid student, and she had clearly been practicing outside of their informal classes. Danielle had gotten bored after the second or third session and stopped. Case had thought Erin would lose her enthusiasm shortly thereafter, but it hadn’t happened yet. Erin was tough and had a great attitude, and Case had found her surprisingly easy to get along with.

“You’re learning fast,” Case said.

“Thanks. I’ve got a good teacher.”

There didn’t seem to be anything to say to that. Case drank some water and handed the bottle to Erin, who accepted it gratefully.

“Band practice tonight?” Erin asked.

“Show tonight, actually.”

“What kind of music do you play, anyway? No—wait. Let me guess. Death metal.” Erin made horns with her left hand, stuck out her tongue, and did a little mock head-banging.

Case made a face. “No way.” She took the bottle back. “I hate metal. We play hard rock.”

“Like Nickelback?”

Case gave her a look designed to wither flowers and kill cockroaches.

“Not like Nickelback,” Erin said.

“No. More like the New York Dolls or Motörhead.”

Erin tightened her lips and shook her head. “Sorry. Not ringing any bells.”

“How about Led Zeppelin? Guns N’ Roses?”

By way of response, Erin opened her mouth and belted out a couple of lines from “November Rain.” It was horrifying. She was even worse than John on one of his bad days. Or maybe it was just that she didn’t have a bunch of loud instruments drowning her out.

“You hate me,” Case said. “That’s the only possible explanation.”

“Sorry, Sensei,” Erin said solemnly. Case growled, but Erin ignored her. “I am a humble student, seeking only knowledge. You hate metal, but you play hard rock. I didn’t know there was a difference.”

“It’s all in the attitude,” Case said. “I want to play music that says ‘Fuck You’ to the world.”

“‘November Rain’?”

Case glared at her. “There are other— You know what? Forget I said Guns N’ Roses, okay?”

“Done. But heavy metal isn’t fuck-you enough for you?”

“Metal isn’t fuck-you at all. The whole metal scene is a club for crybabies who want to all wear the same black T-shirt and feel like they fit in somewhere. Metal is where misfits and fuckups go to feel safe. If you only want to be exposed to your own kind, you play metal, and you never have to run the risk of pissing somebody off.”