Punk and Zen (2 page)

“Hey, you know I couldn’t miss this,” she said in that
slight Brit accent of hers, giving us each a hug. “You didn’t do your takes
yet, did you?”

How to describe Candace? A few inches taller than me,
currently she’d been coloring her wavy hair black and keeping it short so that
it never came past her chin. She had incredibly beautiful green eyes, deep and
dark forest green, and Candace made up in sheer energy for at least two people.
Her ABC presence was so vibrant, you had to stop to count how many people
were in the room—and usually most of them were her, her and her
whatchamacallit, her aura. Well, that and her camera, too.

Outside of being one of the most dynamic people I’d
ever met, Candace was a class-A, number-one photographer, who just happened to
specialize in rock’n’roll. I for one was glad she’d gotten sick of doing
“A&R” (“Artists and Repertoire”) work for the label we’d all worked for and
took up the flash.

Her photography was so fantastic, I actually liked the
way she made me look in photos, and that’s saying something. I generally hate
my pictures. Besides her wonderful eye for composition, Candace was a friend,
and when it came to the band’s link to the public, I trusted her either to take
our pictures or guide us in the right direction professionally. She knew her
shit, she knew it cold, and she knew she knew it, too.

The light flare finally faded from my eyes, and I
could see clearly again. “I’m just about to go in,” I informed her. “Glad you
could make it.”

“Hey, just wanted you to have that ‘live’ feel.”
Candace smiled and flashed her camera at me again. “And I wouldn’t miss this,
anyway.”

I kissed Samantha’s cheek, still light-blind from the
second flare. “Let’s do this thing,” I told her, nerves shaky in my throat, and
I turned again for the door.

“Sit and listen with me,” Samantha invited Candace as
I pushed through the foam baffling to the doorknob, twisting it firmly. I could
see the overflash through the room as Candace took some shots of Bear and the
sound board.

“You know, love, when these girls get down, they rock
it all night,” I heard her tell Bear, and I smiled as I closed the door behind
me and made my way to the microphone that had been suspended from the ceiling
for me. A mounted one would have picked up sound from my feet as I danced and
grooved. A set of headphones hung from an otherwise empty mike stand, and I
slipped them on.

I glanced around at the drum set behind me, which sat
on a riser filled with sand to dampen vibration, then looked at the various
amps and guitars next to them in stands. I’d been in a vocal booth in the
corner of this room before doing “scratch” vocals—a guide track for the band so
that the recording would feel “live”—but that had been with the whole band,
together. Now I was standing in the center of the studio, alone. I reached up
to the microphone and made minute adjustments for my height and comfort.

“Okay, Nina baby, you hear me?” Bear asked in my ears,
his voice almost too loud in its stereo clarity.

“Yeah, you’re fine,” I answered into my own
microphone.

Through the glass I could see one or two people moving
past the glass window in the sound booth so they could sit behind Bear.
Probably the rest of the band, I thought.

Samantha’s voice cut into the silence of my
headphones. “Kitt’s here, love.”

“Hey, Kitt,” I greeted through the mike and waved to
the glass. One of those shadows might have waved back.

Suddenly I felt strange; a huge lump formed in my throat.
This was completely different from either the rehearsal studio or a stage
performance, and it was so very weird, singing in front of the band, having
them watch instead of play with me. An idea struck me.

“Do me a favor, Bear?” I asked. “Lower the lights out
there, and give me a dim spot, okay?”

“You want the smoky night club effect?” he asked, his
voice perfectly stereo-balanced in the center of my head.

“No, I want the
it’s-so-dark-in-here-we-can-barely-see-our-instruments-never-mind-the-audience
effect,” I explained, “where the light is so weird it makes the space very
intimate, and everyone’s hanging on to the sound and just feeling everything
going on—like a low-burning fire.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh.” Bear nodded and the lights dimmed. I
could barely make out Bear’s figure behind the board, and Samantha, Candace,
and whoever else was there dissolved into vaguely humanoid shadows. The sound
stage blackened around me for a moment, then a small, warm light resolved above
my head, directly in front and over the microphone. The overall effect was
similar to candlelight, but without the fitfulness that wax and air display.

“That good?” I heard Bear ask, his voice almost hushed
in the environment we’d created.

I forced the air in and out of my lungs slowly. Focus,
determination, I thought to myself, and drew up in my mind the song and its
structure.

“That’s perfect,” I answered in a steady voice,
letting my breath out gradually.

I breathed again, still slow, still focused on muscle
and air. I tried to ignore the sounds through my headphones of Bear readying
the console and chairs scraping behind him.

Chairs?
I asked myself.
Who’s watching this now?
But I
shoved that thought away. It had no place here, in this now.

“In a moment, Nina.” Bear’s voice came again—strong, sure,
and confident in the semidarkness. This was what he did, and did best—capture
musicians, music, and emotion blended and expressed, phrase followed by phrase,
note replaced by note, building and shaping the ephemeral for all time.

No pressure, no, none at all,
I thought.
This
ABC is just going down on permanent record.

I swallowed and nodded, drawing all the emotions that
I needed to do the music justice into my gut and the events that had created
them into my mind, because before this studio, before the music for this
recording ever existed, this was my life—before all of it, even before Samantha
and I finally got together. Suddenly, it all clicked. I was there, in the
moment. I was ready.

My headphones came to life again when drumsticks
clicked the opening time into my ears, cuing my entrance.

“One, two, three, four…”

∗ ∗ ∗ ∗

Girls
Just Wanna Have Fun/Dominion

I
remember innocence around me

I
remember looking at the sky

I
remember heaven used to ground me

I
remember knowing how to cry

“I Fall”—Life Underwater

∗ ∗ ∗ ∗

I was at the in place, the hot spot, the place to see,
be seen, and be cool. Welcome to the Red Spot, located on ever-so-friendly Bay
Street on Staten Island, New York, home of antiques and “junque” by day, and
the
,
I mean the coolest, place in the counterculture by night.

My second year of college was over for the summer, my
apartment was only a few blocks away, and I didn’t have to be anywhere but
school in September and work on Friday. But since it was only July, and this
Thursday, I didn’t have any obligations for at least another day yet, and that
wasn’t until ten at night, baby.

“
Más tequila
!” Van roared, slamming his shot
glass down on the bar in front of him, hair falling over his chin. He stared
through the strands at his glass, as if fluid would magically appear in it.

“What are you talking about, ‘more tequila’?” Trace
teased from behind him, and, shoving his shot glass to the side, she slid into
his lap, beer in hand. She held her green bottle to his lips, and he gulped at
it desperately.

“That’s your fourth Flaming Sambuca, and the third
time you’ve almost set yourself on fire,” she reminded him in her
honeyed-whiskey voice, and, withdrawing the bottle from him, she replaced it
with her lips. Her wavy, long black hair fell down in a curtain over them both.

Well, that was more than enough of a show for me, and
turning my eyes from what had evolved from a makeout into a mauling, I decided
to check out the scene.

The bar was built on top of an old long-ass, bright
red Cadillac convertible with the chrome sticking out just far enough to make a
comfortable footrest, and in the long, narrow corridor the front bar created
(because there was a back room, too), a couple of TVs hung from the walls,
showing cartoons and underground videos. Sound bins hung alternately from the
ceiling throughout the room, pumping up the music from the jukebox, and the
light was just enough to make out faces, sit in a corner and write pretentious
poetry, or read your beer label, but not enough to show the tiredness, sorrow,
or the effects of too much partying—which was probably a good thing.

I put my own drink down on the bar, just an orange
juice mixed with cranberry. I’d already done a pitcher (or was it two?) of Red
Death shots with Trace, so I was slowing down a bit. Oh, and by the way, Red
Death is an Alabama Slammer mixed with Kamikazes—that’s the best I can explain
it.

I had all night to play and I didn’t want to get too
messed up, you know, so I made my decision. I was going to the back room to
dance. The scene up here in the front was lame, and no way was I going to play
appreciative audience for Trace, who just loved to perform for whoever was
available, or just watch the damn TV. I could do that back at my apartment.

As I wove through the press of bodies to the back
corridor, then took the sharp right to the couple of steps into the dance room,
I nodded hellos to people who greeted me. I loved those steps; they were
painted to look like a giant, triple-level piano keyboard.

The guitar riff from the Cult’s “She Sells Sanctuary”
gave way to the opening harmonics of the New York Choral Society and the start
of “This Corrosion,” by the Sisters of Mercy. At ten minutes long, this song
was incredible lyrically as well as awesome to dance to, and my feet were
already moving toward the center of the dance floor.

I waved to Darrel up in the DJ booth, his blue Mohawk
proud and high on his head and bobbing in time to the rhythm. He returned my
greeting and continued mixing. I lost myself in the throb of the music.

Spinning and twisting to the beat, dancers mixed and
mingled as people admired each other’s style, either of dancing, clothes, or
body, and I ended up dancing with a girl I didn’t really know but had seen
there before. Darrel and I referred to her as “Blue,” because that’s the color
she always wore.

Tonight was no exception. Her latest variation was a
body-hugging electric blue minidress with a skirt that ended a scant two, maybe
three inches below her definition, leaving several inches of bare leg above her
spiderweb-patterned thigh-high stockings and dark hair teased up into a tousled
bunch. It was too dark to tell what color her hair really was, but I’d
definitely seen her in that dress before. We didn’t say a word, just smiled and
played moves off each other. For the record, she danced very well.

“Thanks for the dance,” I said, and smiled at her as
the song changed into the next.

“No, thank you,” she responded with a smile of her
own, and we said nothing for a moment or two. Awkwardness crept into the
silence.

“Well, I’ll see you around the dance floor.” I grinned
to end the silent discomfort, neatly ending this interchange. My line was
polite and just a touch charming, and always my preferred ticket out of an
awkward situation.

“Hey, yeah, see you ’round,” she returned.

Grin still in place, I waved and made my way to the
bathroom. Might as well check my hair, I figured.

I nudged my way through the body press again, up three
little stairs that took me out of the back room, and slipped into a narrow
corridor toward the female-designated plumbing facilities.

Odd, I thought, when that place was empty, it was as
cold as a meat locker, but add people, then music, and you could barely tell
the place was air-conditioned it was so steamy, unless you were in the small
corridor, or in the bathroom, like me.

I waited patiently for a spot to open in front of the
mirror-wall opposite the toilet stalls, and, once there, I gave myself the
once-over starting with my hair, the most important part. Amazingly, it still
looked good.

Shaved to the skin right to the top of my ear, buzzed
to fuzz another half inch, and an inch-long layer to the temple level with my
brow, the rest of it flowed straight and long across my head and down to the
center of my back in a modified Mohawk that spread to the width of my temples,
as opposed to a simple narrow stripe down the middle of my head. I’d brushed it
over to the right, and it arched across perfectly, leaving a curtain I could
hide behind if I wanted, or push back if I didn’t. Right now? I didn’t.

My main mission accomplished, I checked the rest out.
No need to worry about makeup. I rarely wore it, with the exception of a little
eyeliner and mascara every now and then—hey, that stuff will ruin your skin, ya
know. And I inspected my clothes, making sure everything was where it was
supposed to be.