Chapter 19: Soundcheck Song

The Allegheny Arena at three in the afternoon smelled like floor wax and old popcorn.

It was the same arena where I had counted a cash box with a pen in my teeth.

The same folding table sat at the top of the concourse with its legs folded.

I walked past it without slowing down.

Hank had cleared the floor for soundcheck and sent the crew to dinner.

A gray-haired engineer sat at the house board with his arms crossed and his eyes on me.

"He's ours," Hank said, when I looked at him. "Been with the band six years."

"Deirdre's feed?"

"Deirdre's feed runs off the truck outside.

Everything in this room runs off the band's rack." He tapped his clipboard.

"She can cut the stream. She can't cut what the people in the room hear."

"Good."

"You still want to sing?"

"I want to try."

At the back of the stage, behind the drum riser, sat an old black upright piano with a cracked music stand.

Jude was already on the bench.

He had his sleeves pushed up, and his tattooed forearms flexed as he played a slow, spare chord.

I walked up behind him and put my hands on his shoulders.

"Move over," I said.

He scooted to the left.

I sat down beside him, thigh against thigh, and the whole bench groaned.

"I can't play," I said.

"You don't have to."

"I can't sing, either."

"You have the best speaking voice I've ever heard. Sing it like you're telling me."

He put my right hand on the keys.

He showed me three chords, one finger at a time, and I played them badly.

Then he pulled the black notebook from his back pocket and laid it open on the music stand.

"What do you want to say?" he asked.

I thought about it for a long time.

I thought about the groomsman, and the couch, and the boos, and the girl with glitter on her cheek.

"I want to say it plain," I said. "I don't want it to sound clever."

"Then don't."

I took his pen.

I wrote four lines, crossed out two, and wrote them again.