Loud is How I Love You (9 page)

“Sure. We can do anything we want, can’t we?”

“Do you hate me so much right now?”

“Emmylou, I could never hate you. Don’t be ridiculous.” Then he laughs. “But I could definitely put you over my knee again.”

I don’t think I need to mention here just how I feel about that remark. It lands in the room between us like an unexploded bomb.

Sure, dial it right back until I feel comfortable again. Sounds totally reasonable, doesn’t it? Sounds like a real mature, sensitive plan to tackle the myriad of complicated feelings going on between me and Travis right now as we wade through the murky new normal of post-sexageddon. We’ll just go back to not fucking. Everything else will stay the same. We’ll go slower, whatever this means.

But while I’m left
still
thinking about Travis day and night, fantasizing about all the different ways he’s already had me, kissed me, felt me, held me—shit, I am fantasizing about the way he drinks coffee or puts on a pair of socks—he just backs right the hell off like it’s nothing. He acts like there never was a sexageddon at all.

He doesn’t drop his paper off for me to look at on Sunday, and he doesn’t call me after work. I finally call him, feeling pathetic, right at around six and ask him where the paper is. He tells me he’s had George—George!—proofread it. George was a history major for fuck’s sake. What does he know about the semicolon? Nothing, that’s what. Can he hyphenate? Not if he had to save his own mother from a dangling participle could the guy hyphen correctly.

“Well, you’ve got better things to do,” Travis says. “Like review for your exam this week.”

“I don’t need to review,” I say. “I can take that exam right now and ace it.”

“Why don’t you see if you can take it early, then?” Travis suggests. “Just in case?”

“Ask Professor Dickwad for a special favor? He’ll never let me do that.”

I’m prolonging the conversation as much as possible because I’m hoping Travis is going to ask if I want to go to the diner or something. But he doesn’t mention anything even remotely related to the remote possibility of seeing me tonight. I break down and ask him if he wants to go get a slice, but he’s already eaten and he’s in a cleaning frenzy because Mama Omaha comes tomorrow and she’ll want to swing by the house.

“You should see George—he’s actually cleaning the oven right now.”

“Do you need any help?” I ask, and now you know I really want to see him because I would rather sew my own fingers together than clean something.

“No thanks,” he says, pleasant enough. “I’ve got it covered.”

Fine, then.

“So . . . what are you going to tell your mother about your neck?” I ask.

“I’m not going to tell her anything,” he says. “Don’t worry.”

“Are you going to tell her it was Millie?”

“Emmy, I’m twenty-two years old. I don’t have to explain my hickeys to my mother. She’s not going to want to hear about it anyway. At best she’ll give me a withering look and make me put some of her cover-up on it before we go out to dinner.”

“Is it still that bad?”

“Not really,” he says.

Here’s where I’m hoping he asks me how my ass tattoo is looking, and I know the answer because alone in my room today, I’ve probably looked at it in the mirror about five times. Or maybe fifty. But he doesn’t bring it up, and I don’t, either.

Travis is acting totally normal, just the same as he ever did before sexageddon. But I don’t feel “okay” like I am supposed to with things “dialed back.” I’m more of a “this one goes to eleven” kind of gal, I guess.

He picks me up for rehearsal on Tuesday night and the conversation is all about his visit with the woman who ironed his Levi’s all through high school. (I had no idea Travis wore ironed Levi’s in high school, by the way. If he were any other guy, this would change everything.) We talk about what we should put on the set list for Baltimore and, as we hash it out, I realize that going back to “normal” after we’ve had all this amazing sex feels much weirder than the way I felt when we were doing it, or when we were in his kitchen making grilled cheese immediately after bonerfest on Saturday afternoon. So even though we’re acting normal, like nothing ever happened, the old normal is totally weird. Fuck me with a Telecaster, I don’t know what the hell to do now.

“Travis,” I say as we’re about to get out of the van at the beat brothers’ house. He cuts the engine and looks at me expectantly. “Are you mad at me or anything?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I swear, Emmy. I’m definitely not mad. Why, are you?”

“No,” I say. “I’m just, I don’t know. Confused?”

“Confused about what?”

“I don’t think I know what ‘slow’ means,” I say.

“Sure you do,” he says. “You just don’t like it.”

Then he smirks at me like an adorable jackass, gets out of the van and strolls on into the house.

***

Late Wednesday afternoon we’re cruising down I-95 in Steady Beth, aka the Mystery Machine, even though we look more like a meth lab than a bunch of meddling kid detectives in Travis’s plain, unadorned crap-brown Chevy custom van. She’s really not much to look at, but that’s the point. You don’t want to haul thousands of dollars’ worth of gear around in a van that looks good enough to break into. We don’t even put band stickers on her, because there’s no more expedient way to alert the gear thieves out there (and there are many, trust me) that you’re hauling thousands of dollars’ worth of gear than to plaster your truck with band stickers.

Travis is cranking Pavement, so we’re all singing at the top of our lungs to “Range Life,” and now that we’re back on the road, things feel okay again. Maybe I’m confused, but I’m okay. These dorks are my family and I would get in the van and go literally anywhere with the three of them. I feel like after two years of this insanity, they know me better than my own mom, and maybe that sounds sad, but it’s the opposite of sad, because it just goes to show you how close we all are. As much as I want to make it in music, as much as I want to be successful and get signed and make a living this way, it’s this connection the four of us have that is really the root of why I’m so protective of it. It was rough growing up with a single mom, just the two of us against the world there. Since being out on my own, Stars on the Floor has come to feel like my biggest anchor in the world. With the way I am, the things that go through my head and tear at my heart, sometimes I feel like without Soft I might float right the hell away.

“
Don’t worry, we’re in no hurry!
” we’re all singing as we arc over the Delaware Memorial Bridge, the lights of a container ship coming up the river, glowing in the sharp night air.

The van gets quiet and then Joey asks, “Hey, who’s the musician you’d be most interested in having a homoerotic experience with?”

“Henry Rollins,” Travis answers immediately, confidently, like he’s already put some thought into it. I laugh so hard peach Snapple almost comes out of my nose.

“Really?” Joey’s eyes perk up. “Dude, Rollins is fucking manly. He’d break you in half.”

“Worth it,” Travis says.

“I’d go with David Grohl,” Cole says. “All that hair kind of does it for me.”

“I didn’t know you were into drummers, Coco,” Joey says, tweaking Cole’s cheek. Cole smacks his hand away.

“Grow out your hair and then we’ll talk.”

“I’m not being the bottom,” Joey says.

“You say that now,” Travis says.

“What about you, Joey?” I ask. “Who’s your gay crush?”

“I’ve been putting some thought into this,” he says, rubbing his chin. “It’s a tough call, but I think I’d really have to go with Henry Rollins, too. I mean, Black Flag? Who wouldn’t want to fuck all of Black Flag?”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Travis pipes up from the driver’s seat.

“Me, too,” says Cole. “Because he’s fucking Henry Rollins, that’s why.”

“Right?” Travis says. “We can group-hug him.”

“What about you, Emmy?” Cole says. “Who’s your fantasy lesbian hookup?”

“Probably Millie Vagaboss,” I say.

There’s a moment of stunned, awkward silence in the van and I feel my face go bright pink. I’m surprised Travis doesn’t run us right off the road since he’s staring completely wide-eyed at me in the rearview mirror.

“What?” I say, probably more defensively than is quite necessary. “Millie is hot, come on!”

“Um, yeah, she’s definitely hot,” Joey says. “I can really get behind this, I think.”

“Is that, uh, something you’ve, you know, explored, Emmy?” Cole says, trying not to laugh outright.

“Well, Millie kissed me once in the gear alcove at the Melody,” I say, and now Cole spits his Jolt Cola out all over the windshield.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Travis mutters from the front seat as Joey and Cole laugh until they cry. Travis looks up in the rearview mirror at me, trying not to laugh. He’s biting his lip but his eyes, oh God, his eyes are so fucking full of sexual mischief that I want to die.

“What’s so funny?” I say.

“You were supposed to pick somebody famous, Em,” Joey says, bonking me on the head with a rolled-up set list. “Like PJ Harvey.”

“I’d definitely have a gay experience with Polly Jean,” I say. “No question about that. Does that make me bisexual? If
I like sex with guys, but would be willing to have sex with PJ Harvey? Because I’ve never actually tried gay sex, outside of that time I sort of made out with Millie. We were both really drunk, though—does that count?”

“Wait, wait, wait. You ‘sort of made out’ with Millie?” Travis asks as I realize I just made a deposit in his spank bank that’s likely going to last him until retirement. And, well, yes I did. Once. And I was really drunk, okay? Whatever.

“If you care to elaborate on that at all . . .” Joey says.

“She doesn’t,” Travis answers. “You want us to make it to Baltimore alive, don’t you?”

“Fuck me, I’m never going to be able to go bowling with the two of you again,” Cole says, shaking his head.

“What? Why not?” I say.

“Because men are pigs, Emmy,” Joey says. “In case you didn’t already know that.”

“Girls are pigs too, you know,” I say. “I’ll probably be thinking about the three of you guys gangbanging Henry Rollins all night.”

“Next subject!” Travis announces. “In descending order, the top five songs you want played at your memorial service. And, go!”

“‘Dust in the Wind,’ ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ . . .” Cole begins to rattle off his list, but I stop paying attention because I can’t take my eyes off of Travis’s crooked smile as he looks ahead down the road. Then as I’m staring at him, he glances up into the rearview mirror and winks at me and I flush pink from head to toe.

***

We make it to Josie’s Grill, the bar just off campus at Johns Hopkins where WJHU has set up for the after-party. We unload in the back and Travis goes around to the main room to talk to the sound guy and find the guys from the Corporate Secret and Vampires and Assassins. Cole, Joey, and I bring the guitars into the back room where we run into Rex, and there’s this horrific, agonized wailing coming from behind Rex’s bass cabinet and it’s Toby, their singer. He sounds like he’s giving fucking birth back there.

“Oh, he’ll be all right,” Rex says with a worn smile. “He’s passing another kidney stone, that’s all.”

“What the ever-loving fuck?” Cole says. “He’s passing a kidney stone? Right now?”

“Right here?” Joey asks.

“Yeah, it’s pretty painful,” Rex says, totally laid back, because that’s Rex for you. “I’m going to go get him a couple of shots and some Advil.”

“Holy shit,” I say. “Shouldn’t he be in an emergency room somewhere?”

“Nah,” Rex says. “They’ll just hop him up on pain meds and then he won’t be able to play.”

If this sounds insane to anyone not in a band, well, that’s understandable. If you could hear Toby wailing, crying for his mama, his grandma, his teddy bear as he rolls around on the floor back there, well, it is pretty nuts. But if you also knew how tough it is to get a gig like this and how it’s likely to lead to your single getting played on WJHU and how that might help your CMJ chart position, then you might understand why a guy would suffer an agonizing thing like passing a stone on a skanky bar floor instead of on a nice, comfy emergency room cot with an IV full of pain meds. Maybe.

“What the hell?” Travis asks when he comes into the gear room. Jimmy, the drummer for the Corporate Secret, is on the floor, karate-chopping the crap out of Toby’s back now.

“Toby is giving birth to triplets through his penis,” Cole explains.

“Joey, go grab the blanket out of the van,” Travis says.

“Hopefully he’ll pass it soon,” Rex says. “But would you guys mind going on first? I know we were going to sandwich you in the middle, but I don’t think Toby will be ready by then.”

We look down at Toby, his face streaked with tears and dirt as he moans in agony, curled up in the fetal position, gnawing on Jimmy’s stick case. No, I don’t think he’s going to be ready to go on for a while.

“I could pass the fucking thing on stage,” he groans. “On the Goddamned air!”

“We’ll go on first,” I say. “Is there anything else we can do?”

“Yeah, actually,” Rex says. “While I go get the whiskey, maybe you guys can take turns punching him in the kidney.”

“What the fuck?” Cole says.

“No, really, it works,” Rex says. “Helps break it up or something, and it helps with the pain, too. If Jimmy keeps going like that, he’ll wear his arms out before our set. Maybe we can all take shifts or something?”

“Yeah, of course,” Travis says.

“Kill me kill me kill me you ugly bastard motherfuckers,” Toby wails and grabs Jimmy by the shirt.

“Who’s up next?” Jimmy says. “I’m out.”

“I guess I’ll go,” Cole says, rolling up his sleeves.

Jesus.

I’ve been playing in bands since I was sixteen. I’ve played a lot of shows by this point, five years in, and I can tell you, I’ve never seen this. This right here is fucking surreal. Joey comes back with the blanket and we spread it out on the floor and roll Toby onto it, and it’s so fucking weird, I ask Joey to go get me a shot of whiskey, too, because the way Toby is crying, I mean sobbing, is pretty unnerving. Joey goes and gets us all shots. We all toast Toby for being a badass and then we get down to work, taking turns doing karate chops on Toby’s kidney. I’m still not convinced this method is medically sound, because after ninety minutes of this he hasn’t passed it, but we have to quit so we can get on the stage. Rex and Jimmy take over and ask us to extend our set if we need to. Then the guys from Vampires and Assassins show up in the middle of this, or the band of Johns and Brians, as we call them, since three of them are named John and the other two are named Brian. They take over kidney-punching duty for us so we can play.