Roomie

The studio made me feel claustrophobic. I hooked the side of my foot around one of the posts of the stool I was sitting on, looking down at my other leg that swung side to side. Clutching my guitar to my chest, I focused on the grey, worn carpet beneath me and tried to keep my breathing stable. The only person I’d ever played for in my life was my music teacher. Since I hadn’t taken lessons for what was going on twenty years now, I was damn well nervous.

Looking intent on his work, Mikey sat on the other side of the glass and adjusted an array of knobs on the soundboard. He’d already set my guitar up to record, but he told me that he was going to “enhance” the sound a little. Although I was all for making me sound better than I was, I wasn’t sure that a polished sound was what I was going for. He hadn’t heard me yet, after all, and I hoped he wasn’t expecting some upbeat britpop mess of a melody. After a glance at my appearance, I realized that he could probably tell what kind of music was going to come out of my mouth from the moment we met.

It was almost the second coming of christ when Mikey turned on his mic and said to me over the speaker, “Alright Frankie, we’re good. You can start whenever you’re ready.”

Despite the clawing pain I felt in my stomach, I nodded. I propped my guitar up on my leg and reached around to take off my glove from my left hand. I didn’t mind keeping the other one on when I strummed, so I left that one on and tossed the other glove on the floor in front of me. My fingers flexed and I watched the letters on my knuckles contort for a second before I grabbed the neck of my Epiphone to begin. “I’ll just… I’ll do the rhythm part first? And then, I guess, I can listen to that while I play the lead…” I looked to Mikey, who just gave me a thumbs up. “Alright, yeah. Here it goes.”

I pressed my thumb into the neck of my guitar and pushed down on the strings, getting ready. My pick hovered over the strings at the bridge, and I let out a slow exhale with my eyes closed. When they reopened, I brought my pick down hard on the stretched metal strings and banged out the song I’d been stressing over for weeks.

The notes came the same as they had in my bedroom. I’d been sitting on this song for longer than I’d like to admit, and hearing the chords reverberate in the tiny room took me back to the first time I played it. I whispered the words to myself, “I wasted time with a crooked spine when I really should have spent my time with you.” The tips of my fingers ached as they had before, not from the harshness of the strings, but from the pain of the memories. I had never wanted to think about him again, yet here I was. A masochist reliving the pain of lost love. His face invaded my thoughts, and I did my best to focus on the music. “All I have now are memories of how you felt lying next to me.”

At this point I was glad I wasn’t singing because I could barely make the words out through my teeth. My throat was closing up. Attempting to hold in tears, I threw my head back and stared at the ceiling, blinking, as I continued thrashing on my guitar. “I used to have a best friend, now just one more enemy.” My overgrown black hair swayed with me while I played. I recalled how long his hair was when we were together, bleached blond locks down to his shoulders. The way he used to push that awful fringe I had out of my eyes. How we laid in our dorm and blasted the Misfits and Iron Maiden, until eventually we would - god, god I couldn’t even think about it.

I was on the last chorus before I knew it, and after I strummed the final chord I muttered to myself, “All I want is you, to want me.” Without looking up to see what my roommate had to say, I dabbed at my eyes to make calm how brightly red they were from holding in tears. He couldn’t know that I was fucking crying about this. Wiping moisture from my cheeks, I asked, “Was that okay?” and then brushed the hair from my face to glance at Mikey.

He had taken off his headphones and was turned sideways to talk to someone that had walked into the studio, presumably while I was still recording. The man standing there was very animated, making large gestures with one hand and holding a box to his hip with the other. He bent down and put the box on the floor by Mikey’s feet, then straightened up again and rested his hands on his hips. It looked like he’d come from a meeting, with the full suit that he was wearing. Although, this would have been a meeting at which bright blue suits and just as dazzling red hair were commonplace.

I watched the two of them interact for a minute, until Mikey noticed that I had finished and spun around to talk into the mic. “Nice job,” he said. “Sorry I had to stop listening, I had some unexpected… Company.” He scooted his chair over a little and the man who he’d been talking to turned to face me and waved from behind the glass.

My eyes nearly popped out of my skull when I saw the tiny smile of the man I once knew. The corners of his lips pulled up just as I remembered them, and as he waved I noticed his pinky sticking out a bit away from the rest of his fingers. It was him, I really was. Did he know it was me? I dearly hoped there was a glare, as I had just rolled out of bed to accompany Mikey to his studio that morning and I didn’t want to leave him with a lasting memory of my pit-stained sweatshirt.

In a split second he was gone, headed for the door. His fiery hair disappeared before I could speak up, if my voice would have even been able to hold steady. Then, Mikey slid his headphones back on and said the words that kept me up all night for the weeks to come:

“That’s my brother, Gerard.”

Notes

3 of 10