JESSE (Boston)
His parents died today, he thought.
The flickering stage lights were the reason why Jesse wore shades during his band’s show. The Gibson guitar felt heavier than usual, and he found himself skipping parts of his own lyrics. But the crowd was jumping and cheering all the same. He had played at Paradise Rock Club over thirty times since he moved to Boston, and this was probably one of his poorest performances. He looked over to the back of the pub where his girlfriend Toni was sitting cross-legged on a high stool. The dark covered her face. She could be smiling, or she could be reading him like a book like she always did.
Often, she would know his problems before he even had a chance to tell her, or she would know them before he did. He wished he could skip to the last song and then leave through the backdoor. Instead, he let the setlist drag.
His mind wandered into the past in Connecticut, where he last saw his family. Life was good until both his parents started working full-time. When they enrolled him in a boarding school for boys, he was ten years old. His younger sister Lara was almost five at the time and would later be bound for the girls’ school in Wallingford. Family gatherings only occurred during the holidays, and the estrangement would grow over time. It got worse when Jesse, at fifteen, decided to drop out of boarding school and move to Boston with his best friend Brad to start a band. Since music was the only subject Jesse ever excelled in, he got a diploma in Music Performance. Despite their disappointment about Jesse’s decision, his parents never forced any contact after he left. However, since he stopped talking to them, Lara stopped talking to him, even after ensuring that he would never abandon her. A handful of his letters and emails had remained unanswered. And never did it occur to him to go see her in Wallingford.
He threw a brief glance at Brad, who was always covered in sweat on the drums. During his guitar solos, he would often head over to Brad and head-bang, but he didn’t do it that night.
Since Toni was a local visitor to the club, she didn’t need a pass anymore to access any unauthorized backstage areas. He could hear her firm steps in the hallway while he was packing up the rest of his gear at the backdoor. He was ready for any accusation and complaint that she would fire at him, but in fact, she was crying.
“Oh, Jesse!” she threw her arms around him. “Why didn’t you tell me anything? How were you even able to perform? What the fuck?!”
Brad slowly appeared from around the corner with the look in his face saying that he had been fucking Toni.
“Jesse? Talk to me,” she sobbed. “Your parents are dead!”
He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so dissociated from everyone. Brad didn’t look guilty at all for making Jesse’s problems worse than they really were.
“I just found out before the show. What did you expect me to do?” Jesse said.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I want to be alone.”
Jesse adjusted the straps of his guitar bag, picked up his amp and his set of pedals. No one bothered to open the exit door for him until a pub employee headed out for a smoke.
He smelled alcohol on Toni’s breath, which meant that she was not driving. It was probably not the first time Brad would drive her home. When he finished loading the car, his phone vibrated. Toni wouldn’t text him when he was only a few footsteps away. He was surprised she didn’t follow him out. Of course, Brad was there, and Brad knew him well enough to tell her what she should and shouldn’t do.
Before he started the car, he grabbed his phone and saw a text message from Lara. It was the first time, in five years, that she spoke to him.
“Don’t come,” it said. The screen went black. He hit the home button again.
“Don’t come.” These words illuminated on the screen, growing bolder as he looked closer.
It went dark again. Jesse leaned back and stared straight ahead with a deep sigh. About twelve feet in front of him were tall, dark hedges swaying back and forth. Then the wind began sweeping the dry autumn leaves from the ground. He noticed how terribly pruned the hedges were; they weren’t growing closely together either and looked creepy at night. The wind picked up, and the hedges swayed heavily westward. He thought of home. His parents had a hedge maze. Nothing in their former garden ever swayed except for the red oak tree.
The echo of drunken laughter caught him off guard. In the rear-view mirror, he saw his other band members offering weed to local fans, but they were having a hard time lighting their joints in the wind. He wanted to leave before they spotted him. Looking ahead again, he noticed a tall, dark figure shaking unnaturally. It looked like an upright standing animal shaking off.
.
.
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By P-chan ©(2020)
-Short story collection to come in 2025-
