It's been a while since I've really written something, and it feels like an old muscle now. It's like if you were to wake up after snoozing on a couch for hours, maybe days, and were you to stand up suddenly, you're not entirely sure if your legs have atrophied to the point that you'll immediately tumble back down or if you'll remain upright, feeling the blood flowing again as you stretch and breathe the thick air that's so much sweeter for being only a few inches higher.
I just found this short story that I wrote, it was lost somewhere in the depths of my own consciousness as well as the untamed jungle that is my Yahoo mail inbox. I suppose because it's pretty autobiographical it's still very clear to me now, exactly what it portrays, but to an outside party reading a jacket summary, it might go something like this:
"A group of musicians put aside their emotional history for one last jam session. Bielewicz, Matthew, August 2003, recovered from a ridiculous email inbox and posted online for shits and giggles, July 2011."
I'm not entirely sure why I wrote it from someone else's perspective. I'm also not sure now if the event ever actually took place, but it very well may have.
The minute she stepped into the room she could feel the electricity in the air.
It wasn’t just the low hum of the amplifiers, microphones and huge speaker boxes lumbering around the somewhat dusty room, but also something else. Something thick hanging in the air, almost palpably energetic. She sat on her stool and watched as they got ready, plugging in cables, placing and adjusting pieces, winding strings, moving monitors. She smiled slightly, thinking how each one of them had their own little neuroses about their equipment. They made a bit of small talk at the start, shaking hands and telling short stories about a few things in their recent lives, but now the anticipation had set in and she could tell that all three of them were unsure. But excited.
Although she’d been together with them for almost two years before the split, she couldn’t help feel that she was an outsider to their triangle, and always had been. To her they seemed to have this chemistry, a triple bond that couldn’t be broken, and she was a fifth... well, a fourth wheel. But they had always encouraged her, and before the end the results had been wonderful, escalating slightly over the months of practices, months of quiet shows at dinky bars with bare-bones audiences, assemblies and classes at apathetic high schools, but seemed to finally have been settling into a groove that was hitting home with some fans. Fans that weren’t there because they were related to the band members, but instead related to their music, lyrics and attitudes. By the end she had at times completely shaken the fear of stepping up to a blankly staring microphone, and baring her soul to be amplified to both people that she knew dearly, and ones she didn’t know at all. That was when it was the best, when it sounded so technically good and so passionate, when the outcome was uncertain and all of them had to put it all down on an unlikely bet. Certain moments stuck out in her mind, moments of having so much fun singing with all her might and knowing she and the boys sounded great, moments of finding movement across the stage so easily when it usually had been so nerve-wracking, and remembering the feeling of an audience applauding when you could tell they really meant every hand clap and every catcall and whistle.
But she also remembered times when she felt out of place. The first few practices were especially so, thinking that although she was doing ok, that they would never want her as a permanent fixture in the band, wouldn’t accept her once she really sang out the way she wanted to. Afterwards as well, she didn’t know whether or not to feel guilty about everything that happened, thinking that maybe if she’d just stayed home instead of coming to their practice that day after school, that maybe they’d still be together. That they’d be stars by now. Nevertheless, she chose to go to that practice, and all history beyond them, now they were here - somewhere between a reunion and a last goodbye.
They were looking around at each other while making final adjustments, seeing if the others were ready to start yet.
“You ready?”
“Yeah”
“Let’s do it.”
Someone flicked a switch, and the three-year older lines and half-nervous, anxious smiles disappeared as the naked light bulbs went out. They were replaced by colored lights that were strewn about the ceiling, as if for a moment gravity had reversed as someone dropped a huge box of tangled wires, fixtures and colored bulbs. Black lights were hidden somewhere in the rafters, she noticed, as tiny dust particles now stood out bright bluish-white on the fuzzy speakers and on her shirt. And dancing the circular shafts of light around the room was the old mirror ball. It was like they were all instantly transported to another room, away from dust and fingerprints and equipment, into a room where whatever they said, played, did and had done in the past was glossed over by a vaseline lens.
The music began then. The guitar player always began, and this time did so with new notes, but old feelings behind them. She watched the bass player following his fingers, knowing that whatever was about to happen hadn’t been planned or practiced in advance. The drummer then started slowly, still listening for the changes in the melodic progression being pulled from somewhere deep within themselves. It grew, and gained solidity as the bass player laid down a floor, an undercurrent to the motions the guitar set forth. Slowly gaining momentum, gaining trust again in each other’s abilities, she listened as the tune shifted it’s footing, turning from one face to the other and as if they all heard a voice from a conductor somewhere floating in the air, they suddenly plunged into intensity all together. The music was somewhat dark, and yet so passionate about it’s own emotions, all without a lyric ever being sung. She watched and bobbed her head to the driving force of the music, taking it all in as all three of them played and moved in their own way. The bass player hunching over his ground-shaking bass, bending his knees and rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, the guitar player with his legs spread apart, alternately leaning over his guitar in concentration and throwing his body and head back as he pulled melodies out of the strings, and the drummer agilely pounding out rhythms with not only his arms, but with his whole body, every once in a while twirling a stick in his fingers if one of them glanced his way. The incredible force of the music brought all the memories flooding back to her, not only of him but of the friendship and unbreakable connection to each other that the band used to have, that used to flourish, whether it was within these very walls or not. The music had segued and now her palms got sweaty. She remembered every note of this progression, and hoped she wouldn’t forget a single word as she stepped up to the microphone, took a deep breath and started baring her soul. First the lyrics were the focus, (don’t forget don’t forget don’t forget) then the music itself, changing and revisiting old melodies with new feelings that she hoped showed how much she felt she’d grown in three years. The harmonies came in now, and there was a nearly audible click when the four of them hit it, with so much feeling, with so much fun, just the way it used to be.
And as soon as it had begun it was over. Although it had gone on for hours and hours, no one could have convinced any one of them that it hadn’t been a dream in a split second. The last echoes of distortion and feedback faded and died in the speakers. The walls seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, and the temperature in the room had drastically increased since the beginning. But as they looked from one sweaty face to another, it seemed none of them could find the words to describe, to acknowledge, to speak. They looked at each other with smiles on their faces, and she could swear all three of them were holding back tears in their eyes, for hers were streaming down. All that was left was a humming silence, substituting for the ringing that they all knew would be in their ears later, the ringing that made you feel wonderful for knowing you were a part of something. And then a voice trying so hard to have conviction said from somewhere -
“We... we’ll have to do this again sometime.”
A shaky voice replied.
“Yeah.”
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