Purgatory Blues (2013), page 26
Cassidy gave him a shifty look before answering, “I don’t know if there’s a rule, but I know what I was feeling like at the time”.
“And?”
“Okay, I have this theory, bear with me”, she said, motioning with her hands, “guys like you wanna act all tough and go out hunting and stuff like that so you can impress all the girls and show them how cool you are”.
“Okay”, Andy said with a chuckle.
“It’s like the caveman thing, you want to be a good provider. I think that any time your role as that kind of archetype is challenged, you’ll think that you’re a steaming pile of horse shit and it’s like throwing your ego in to a wood chipper”.
“You going somewhere with this?” Andy asked impatiently, disturbed at the imagery.
“I said bear with me”, Cassidy announced with a raised brow.
“Uh huh”.
“Now, girls like me…look, the way I was feeling that night was…how do I put it…” Cassidy looked from side to side. Andy could see that her brain was accessing information. “Okay, it’s really the same kinda cave thing, women like me want to feel needed. If the guy goes out and kills the deer then I want to have to be the one who knows how to cook it, that kind of thing, get it?”
“Not yet”, Andy said with a confused smile.
“Look, I like knowing that his life is going to fall apart without me in it, I know that’s fucked up and selfish sounding, but it’s true. He’s my big strong man and I’m his woman. He does what I tell him or I don’t give him sex”, Cassidy said with a laugh.
“You still haven’t explained that night though”.
“I’m getting there”, she said. “That night I didn’t do what I did because I didn’t love Kevin anymore and I certainly didn’t do it because I had feelings for you”.
“Oh thanks, it was special for me too”, Andy said, laughing uncomfortably.
“I guess, when he left the night before I felt like I had done something wrong, like I wasn’t good enough at making him happy or something like that. I wanted to know that I was good enough so that someone could want me…that I was still good enough you know? And you were there and I felt safe with you…you were a nice guy, so I suppose I thought that if this guy could want me…I don’t know…something like that. I wanted to feel needed and I wanted to feel loved…that’s what that was. Get it?”
“Yeah, I think I do”, Andy said.
“What did you want to know all this for anyway?” Cassidy asked.
“My ego got thrown in a wood chipper”, he replied.
“Huh?”
“Remember Melissa? The one I used to date?”
“Music store Melissa”, Cassidy said with a smile, as though that were Melissa’s full name. “Sure I know her, we get our gear from her, she’s a sweetheart. I always thought you guys would end up together”.
“So did I”, Andy said with a loud sigh.
“What happened?” Cassidy asked.
“I suppose maybe I’ve been remembering things the way I wanted to as well. We were together a long time, years”, Andy said, thinking back to the exact period when he left the club. “We were both in the Reapers back then. I was spending a lot more time with the president, Jack. I was going on runs for the club, stuff like that. I guess I wasn’t around a lot. We started fighting all the time. I remember the last time I saw her we had this major argument about what was more important, her or the club. I don’t think I gave her an answer, maybe I thought we’d talk about it when I got back. I just left”.
“Then?” Cassidy asked.
“Well I got back after about four days or so, I was wrecked from the long ride down. I go sit down at the bar and Al comes up to me and says that we need to talk. He told me that he’d slept with Melissa. I didn’t wait to hear more than that. He was one of my best friends and he’d stabbed me in the back”. Andy said. He began massaging his temples before he picked up the whiskey on the table and took a large swallow.
“Jeez”, Cassidy said, “what did you do?”
“What do you think I did?” Andy said with a derisive snort, “I beat on the motherfucker till he was a bloody pulp. Maybe I overreacted, but I mean…your friend tells you that…come on, you just see red”.
“Yeah, I guess”, Cassidy sympathized, “what happened then?”
“I didn’t give Melissa a chance to explain anything. I just left, I didn’t answer any of her calls, I didn’t come to my door when she came over, I didn’t even see her again till a few days ago…that’s when things kinda started up with us. It’s weird, I still love her, but I just couldn’t get past that whole thing you know? It’s been a few years now…I sorta kept that bottled up inside me”, Andy said and took another sip of the whiskey.
He looked at the bottle in his hand and abruptly put it down before continuing. “Maybe Al was trying to do the right thing and come to me like a man and admit what he’d done, who knows? Maybe he was trying to be honest and I punished him for it. Maybe Melissa thought we were broken up. Maybe she really did make a mistake when she was feeling vulnerable because of the way I’d treated her. Maybe she was gonna wait to tell me once the fighting was over like you did”.
“That’s a lot of maybes”, Cassidy said.
“Yeah”, Andy said with a wry chuckle, “I don’t know if it would’ve made a difference though, I mean with you and me I could just disappear from your life, but this was in the club, one of us had to go…it had to be me”.
There was a long pause before Cassidy asked, “So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet”, Andy replied, “but if Kevin could forgive you, I guess I can stop acting like a caveman with a bruised ego too”.
“Yup”, Cassidy said with a big smile.
“Hey! Guess what I’ve got in my car?” Andy said, changing the subject.
“What?” Cassidy asked excitedly.
“Julian’s old red Stratocaster! He gave it to me last night!” Andy said proudly.
“Oooooh!” Cassidy said with her big animated eyes and clapped her hands together like a sea otter.
“How about we take those amps out for a little test run, I’ve got my eye on that Soldano!”
“Let’s!” she said, jumping up from the couch.
They were both almost at the door when Andy stopped Cassidy. “Hey”, he said, tapping her on the shoulder.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for the talk, I needed a woman’s point of view to understand things”.
“Anytime sweetie”, Cassidy said and gave Andy a hug, “come on”, she added with a wink as she passed through the door.
Over the next few hours, Cassidy, Paul, Andy and Dave had what must have been the longest impromptu jam session that Andy could recall in recent memory. They played for two hours straight after having moved some gear in to the chill room. Everyone tried their hand at every instrument, from guitar to base, from the piano to vocals. They eventually took a break for beer and pizza before going at it for another hour.
They enjoyed Andy’s company immensely, as musicians generally do when they have someone new to give them fresh ideas and shake up their old formulas. Andy was learning a lot from them as well. Nobody had even noticed that Jeff, who was supposedly laying down drum tracks, hadn’t been seen in quite some time. It was then that a skinny blonde man with glasses and a goatee stormed in to the chill room shouting “Cas!” He’d been bellowing the name repeatedly as he made his way down the hall.
Cassidy stopped what she was doing on the piano and stood up. “Hold it guys, what’s up Chuck?” She asked the goateed man with a worried smile.
“Can you talk to your friend please?” Chuck said, appearing panic stricken, “I’ve been in there with him all day, ‘again, again, again’, is all I hear from him and every god damn take sounds exactly the same. We’ve got other bands upstairs Cas, I don’t double book but you asked me to do you a favor and my favors only go so far. I’m helping you guys out and I don’t need this bullshit”.
“Okay, okay”, Cassidy said, trying to calm him down, “I’ll take care of it, don’t worry…and I’m sorry about Jeff, sometimes he gets carried away”.
Cassidy, however, didn’t have a chance to find Jeff. He’d found them instead. He entered the chill room looking like a deranged mental patient wearing a torn t-shirt, three quarter kakis and sneakers. He was sweating profusely and with his long, dark hair it looked like he’d just gotten out of the shower.
“Fuck this shit man!” Jeff said as he pushed Chuck out of the way. “It’s almost there, almost there, it’s just not coming out right and it’s this fuckers fault man!” He shouted, pointing at Chuck.
“How’s your playing Chuck’s fault Jeff?” Cassidy asked.
“He keeps fucking looking at me funny”, Jeff said before shoving Chuck backward.
“Easy Jeff”, Dave said, putting his guitar down. Andy and Paul did the same.
“Fuck easy!” Jeff shouted and began searching the table, knocking things over frantically.
“What’s he on?” Andy whispered to Cassidy.
“Everything I think’, she said to Andy with worry in her eyes.
“Fuck!” Jeff shouted. He didn’t find what he was looking for. He left the room and everyone followed him out.
They found him in the equipment room across the hall rifling through bags of gear. When they were all inside Andy decided to break the tension by introducing himself. “Hi”, he said to Chuck, “I’m Andy”.
“Yeah, I know, Chuck”, he said with a polite smile, offering Andy his hand. “I’d like to work with you guys some time”.
Cassidy went up to Jeff to try talking to him but he pushed her aside in frustration and walked back in to the hall. She gave Andy a nervous look. By the time they’d followed him back in to the chill room, they found him searching through Andy’s jacket pockets. He’d left it on the sofa when they started jamming.
“What the fuck?” Andy shouted as he walked towards Jeff, having every intention of physically educating him on the importance of respecting other people’s property.
Cassidy grabbed Andy’s arm to stop him, “just let him get it out of his system”, she said.
Andy knew that crazy people looking for drugs would continue the search until they’d exhausted all possible options. He’d seen people search car seats for crumbs…this was no different. The only problem was that there really were drugs in Andy’s jacket. In no time at all, Jeff found the folded up piece of paper. How he’d known to open it and check was anyone’s guess. Andy could only think that it was a testament to the hold that drugs had on Jeff.
“God! That’s good”, Jeff said after tasting a bit of the uncut with his pinky finger.
Cassidy turned to Andy with a questioning look. He returned her a shrug and a raised eyebrow as if to say “oh, you know how it is”, echoing her earlier statement.
Jeff began chopping a line on the piano when Chuck looked to Cassidy in desperation, “really? On my fucking piano?”
Dave and Paul remained silent, Andy was left to assume that Cassidy was in charge and they’d follow her lead.
“Slow down Jeff”, Cassidy said to him, “I think you’ve done enough for the day buddy. Let’s call it, we’ll come back tomorrow”.
“Fuck that!” Jeff said urgently, wiping the sweat off his brow, “I’m gonna nail this next one and that fucker”, he shouted, pointing to Chuck, “is going to get the take!”
Jeff put his head down and had a huge line of the uncut with a rolled up bank note, making a loud snorting noise as he did. It sounded to Andy like Jeff’s sinuses were congested, most likely because he’d been partying with sub-standard drugs for days in a row. It was a reasonable explanation, given his current disposition.
“Move!” He shouted to Cassidy, who was hovering beside him. He pushed her absentmindedly, but with such force that she lost her balance and fell to the ground with a loud “thump”. The switch in Andy’s head flipped.
“You!” Jeff shouted to Chuck, “come!”
Chuck was standing just a little behind Andy, near the door, which meant that Jeff was on a path straight for him. Andy rolled his eye’s in frustration, he knew what he was going to do, he only wished that he could go somewhere once without having crazy shit happen to him.
He didn’t give Jeff any warning. To Andy’s mind there was only one way to deal with someone who was being as unreasonable as Jeff, he had to be removed from the equation. Andy threw out one quick jab and Jeff was no longer an issue. He’d sized him up and knew that it was all he’d need to put him down quickly.
Suddenly it was quiet and everyone froze exactly where they were. Jeff let out a moan on the floor and held his face. Blood was streaming out of his broken nose.
“Thanks”, Chuck said in a soft voice.
“My pleasure”, Andy said to him before stepping over Jeff to pick up Cassidy. “You okay?” he asked as he helped her up.
“You didn’t have to do that”, Cassidy said as she stood up.
“Seemed like the easiest thing to do”, Andy said.
Dave and Paul began helping Jeff to his feet. “Sorry about Jeff, Andy”, Dave volunteered.
“Hey, I should be apologizing to you guys, sorry I had to do that”, Andy replied.
“Better you than us”, Paul said.
“You guys okay getting him home?” Andy asked.
“Yeah, we got this”, Dave answered.
Andy helped Chuck and Cassidy clean up the mess in the chill room while Paul and Dave put Jeff into the pickup outside. From the mood in the room it seemed as though the session was now quite over. Andy said his goodbyes to Paul, Dave and Chuck. He saved Cassidy for last.
“So”, Andy said to her with an awkward smile, “I guess that’s me visiting huh?”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself”, Cassidy answered him with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, “I’ve wanted to do that to Jeff myself sometimes. Now whenever he misbehaves I can tell him that I’m going to call Andy!”
“Better keep me on speed dial then”, Andy said with a laugh. He grabbed Julian’s guitar and waved to Cassidy and Chuck as he walked to his car. On the drive back he thought about Jeff and wondered if he’d ever behaved like that himself. The idea made him uncomfortable and brought back his tick. “Fuck”, he said to no one and shook the thoughts away.
That was when he decided that it was time to turn over a new leaf. He stopped at a little convenience store and picked up some trash bags and cleaning supplies. After discovering that one of his credit cards had been declined, he tried another and prayed that it would work. It did.
He took everything back to his apartment and set himself to the task. The first thing he had to do was to get the superintendent to put his power back on. Once that was done he went back inside and got to work.
He filled five large bags with cigarettes boxes, take out boxes, beer cans, parking tickets, bills, mail, empty bottles, random food and beverage containers, drug paraphernalia and items of clothing that had been laying on the floor so long they’d become unrecoverable. He found a large box and discovered that the parts of the demolished television fit inside quite nicely.
When he was done with that he went about vacuuming the entire apartment. After emptying the contents of the vacuum into one of the trash bags, he carried the bags and the box outside, down to where they’d be waiting for the trash collectors.
When he came back inside he surveyed the kitchen and bathroom, then decided that it was a task best left for another day, he was already dead tired. He looked over the rooms that he’d cleaned and felt a sense of pride, thinking that a new beginning was at hand. He showered and got into bed, passing out instantly.
Chapter 15
Andy woke with a start to the sound of thunder…it was just a little after eleven. As he sat up in the bed he looked out the window, it was still only drizzling but the clouds looming in the sky warned of greater things to come. He turned over almost expecting Melissa to be there, his heart sank when he remembered that it was days later and she was long gone.
He looked next to the bed and saw the guitar that Julian had given him. The sight of it made him feel a little better, he pulled it out of the case and held it for a while, feeling the weight of it. Somehow holding the instrument filled him with feeling of peace, it was like the promise of a better future.
A thought occurred to him that brought a smile to his face. He opened the drawer in the nightstand and pulled out a black marker, using it to write a message on the guitar before he tucked it away in its case.
He picked up his phone and saw that there were calls from his parents and from Elsa’s. He briefly wondered what the reason could be for their sudden attempt to contact him…and then he saw the accompanying text message from her parents, it read:
“We missed you at the cemetery today, hope you are well, please call”.
He realized then that it had been exactly one year since Elsa had passed away. He found it strange that it had felt like the longest year of his life, yet he could hardly remember any of it. He sat there for a moment, uncertain of what to do. He hadn’t been to her grave since they’d placed her in it, he’d always meant to…and now the revelation of his own self-involvement made him feel shame for his cowardice. He’d even missed her birthday.
The hollow feeling in his chest was replaced by the thought that it wasn’t too late to make things right, he’d already made the decision to change…now he’d have to follow through. He left the bedroom and went about his morning routine, showering, shaving and readying himself for the day ahead. He’d long since run out of clean clothes, he’d taken to buying new ones when the others began to get crusty. Today the best he could do was to find a new shirt to add to his typical jeans, boots and jacket. He picked out a blue one that had been left in the closet unused. She’d always liked him in blue.
When he was ready to leave he grabbed his keys and left the apartment. He took Elsa’s car and drove to the nearest mall. After having a quick breakfast, which, for the first time did not include alcohol, he headed to a florist and bought a dozen red roses. Once they’d been stripped of their thorns and professionally arranged he left for the cemetery.
