Gone Bad (9 page)

We hadn't been practising for more than a month when Barry told us there was a gig coming up that we couldn't turn down. “There's going to be this rally on Gottingen Street,” he said. “Kind of like a big block party to bring people together and make a stand against violence in the city. It's being put together by a whole bunch of community groups.”

“You must be joking,” I said.

Barry shook his head. “You rather we party with the PFMM?”

I held my drumsticks in the air. “Hey, I wasn't complaining. A gig's a gig. I just wanted to make sure I knew who I was working for.”

I looked at Jeffrey. The guy was actually laughing. We were getting along pretty good, considering our past history. It worried me sometimes that I didn't hate him like I used to. But I tried not to let it get to me. We played music. The three of us were good. Scream Static had just gone a little weirder, that's all.

“It's getting worse, isn't it?” Kelsey asked Barry.

“What do you mean?”

“More beatings,” she said, looking very serious all of a sudden. “Little kids getting punched around at school. Kids on the street getting swarmed. More fights between black and white gangs. Is it just 'cause I'm paying attention or is it something else?”

Kelsey was in very serious mood. The girl actually sat around thinking about this stuff. She probably guessed that I sometimes missed being part of the downtown action. I really felt like bashing someone once in a while. Even music couldn't use up all my energy.

So here we were — three people with problems who had become a loud and angry band with something to sing about. Jeffrey had never really fit in anywhere. Kelsey had been at odds with the world since the day she was born. And I don't exactly know how to describe my problem. It seemed I was always really ticked off about something.

“Yeah,” Barry said. “It's worse. You see it in the news. You see it on the street. Women are afraid to go out at night. Parents are afraid to let their kids walk down the street. You got white kids picking on black kids. Blacks picking on whites. Men stalking women. Gay bashing.”

“Hey, don't sweat it. It's just the way things are,” I told him.

Barry pretended he didn't hear me. “So what's the story? Are we in or out? You guys want the gig or not?”

“How much we getting paid?” I asked. I was a pro, right? I should know how much it was worth.

“The place will be crawling with media people. We're talking about twenty thousand dollars worth of free publicity here,” Barry said.

“In other words, we don't get paid, Cody,” Jeffrey said.

“That's fine with me,” Kelsey said. “I think the whole capitalist thing sucks anyway. We don't need the money.”

Now Kelsey was putting down money. Every day it was a new twist with her. It was hard to keep my head adjusted to it.

“I bet that if we don't do this gig, they got no one, right?”

“Wrong,” Barry said. “Prime Targets is interested if you guys aren't ready to do it.” Prime Targets was Alex's new band, the one managed by Giles, the band so clean they were being groomed for big success. “Okay, we'll do it,” I conceded. I knew it was a lost cause from the beginning. “Who could turn down twenty thousand dollars worth of free publicity?”

For the big event they closed off a couple of blocks of Gottingen. It had a pretty cool feel to it with no cars, just people filling the street. We had our gear set up on the back of a flatbed trailer that acted as a stage and Barry borrowed a serious sound system for the event.

Around the perimeter of the crowd were cops. I'd never seen so many police in one place, but I'd given up worrying every time I saw a cop. If they wanted me, they would have hauled me in long ago. Besides, sometimes I convinced myself I was a changed person. Today I was on the side of the good guys. Maybe the cops didn't trust the organizers of this thing. Maybe they didn't trust the crowd. With this many people on the street in this part of town, anything could happen.

Before we could play, we had to listen to a bunch of speeches by some people who thought they could fix all the problems of the city by just standing up and talking them all away. The first one to take the mic was this skinny old feminist name Maude. She was a bit much for me to handle. Next, a black minister gave a little preachy thing about standing up to injustice. He reminded me of somebody I'd seen in a rap video. The audience was this really crazy mix of black and white people, street life and university types, mothers with little kids, suburbanites and high school kids from all over town. The whole time the speakers were hogging the mics, I kept thinking that this was going to be one very tough audience.

The crowd was so big, I couldn't see the back of it. I kept looking at the faces and trying to figure what sort of music each one listened to. Man, we didn't have anything for any of them. All we had was our stuff — it was new, it was raw, and it was loud. Thinking about it made me nervous.

I saw Jeffrey talking to some of his old street friends. A few of them gave me the creeps. Suddenly I felt somebody squeeze my hand. It was Kelsey. She was smiling at me. She'd been real intent on listening to the speakers but now she was paying attention to me. “I'm really glad we're doing this,” she told me. “I'm glad we're doing this together.”

“Me too,” I said. “We'll blow them all away.”

Another speaker came up to the podium, somebody who said he was from the Halifax Peace Society. I wasn't paying too much attention to him. In fact, I was thinking about Kelsey. I felt like that invisible barrier between us had finally broken down. I wanted to tell her that. I wanted to tell her how I really felt about her — not just how much I respected her music but how much I cared for her. But I knew as soon as I opened my mouth I would sound like an idiot.

Just then, Alex arrived on the scene with some of his band. He walked right up to us, dressed in clothes that must have cost a couple hundred bucks.

“Hi Slick,” Kelsey said. “Good to see you.” She didn't hold any grudges. I couldn't be that polite.

“I'm glad you guys are doing this show,” Alex said. “It's your style.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. I could detect a put-down when I heard it.

“They asked us first,” Alex said. “But Giles thought it was a little too sensitive so we turned them down.”

I got the picture loud and clear. But I didn't believe him, the little snot.

“Besides, we've got a plane to catch later this afternoon. It's our first really big gig.”

“Congratulations,” Kelsey told Alex, pretending she really cared. Kelsey was squeezing my hand harder. She knew it might look bad for me to punch the guy's lights out or rip his tongue out of his mouth, right there in front of everybody at the anti-violence rally.

“Yeah, congratulations,” I told Alex.

“How's the new guitar player working out?” Alex asked, pointing over at Jeffrey. One of his other band buddies beside him was whispering something and all three of them were cracking up.

“You know how it is breaking in a new musician,” Kelsey said, sounding very professional. “It's tough at first and then things click.”

I couldn't wait until Alex heard just how good his replacement was. But I wasn't going to say what was on my mind. I just said, “You'll have to excuse us. We gotta get ready to do some music.”

The speeches were winding down. We pulled Jeffrey away from his friends and walked back behind the flatbed trailer stage.

“Do you really think they asked Alex's band first?” I asked Kelsey.

“It doesn't matter,” Jeffrey said.

“But I wanna know,” I said. Up until then I had been hanging onto my confidence. Now it was slipping down to my knees.

The final speaker was finishing up and I knew we were about to be introduced. Why was it so important to me whether we were asked first or not?

“I don't know,” Kelsey answered. “I honestly don't. But it doesn't matter. We've been wanting an audience for a long time. Now we've got it. And it's a big one. You think I'm not nervous too?”

Whoa. She had come out and said it. She had read me like a book. That's what I was feeling. I was just looking for excuses but the truth was I wasn't just nervous. I was shaking-in-my-boots scared. I'd never felt like this before. This was completely different. I didn't know if I could go on.

I listened to the lady on the stage introducing us. “And now a band that shares our concerns for making these streets safe. You know them for their underground hits like ‘The Condom Song' and ‘Daredevil Difference.' Here they are — Scream Static!”

My knees felt like jelly and my arms like rubber as I walked out onto the stage and sat down at the drums. In front of us was a sea of faces. People were clapping and cheering but the crowd scared me. I felt like they were all my enemies. I knew it was up to me to get the beat going, to start hammering and get the music moving. I couldn't see whether Jeffrey was scared or not because he had his back to me. But I caught the look on Kelsey's face. It told me she felt the same way I did.

The clapping had subsided. People were waiting for something to happen. For a split second I felt frozen, immobile. What if I really messed this up for good? said that voice of doubt inside my head. I closed my eyes and tried to pretend I was back in Kelsey's garage. It wasn't working.

But then I heard one single note coming from Kelsey's keyboard. She was holding down one key. The sound of that one note was like electricity connecting us. It was like some powerful, insistent force recharging all the batteries of my will. Jeffrey joined in now with the first thunderous chord of “Downtown Dangerous” and I felt the energy double. I felt the connection between all three of us and suddenly my arms were moving. My eyes were still closed, my head tilted up to the sky, but I was in motion. I was letting the rhythm of my drums take over as we launched into the intro for the song.

With the monster PA system it sounded like an avalanche of sound. I heard each drumbeat echo off the walls of the storefronts. I opened my eyes as Kelsey began to sing the first verse and I saw the sea of faces again. But this time it wasn't like they were my enemies. They were all my friends.

We roared, we wailed, we made music that must have shaken the foundations of the buildings. Kelsey's voice was strong and her songs were angry. Her anger was an anger of caring. I listened to her words again and knew for sure the organizers had asked us first. Kelsey's songs were right in sync with this anti-violence thing. We were now the centre of all that energy. As I watched Jeffrey launch into space with his magnificent lead guitar work, the irony of the moment came back to haunt me. And when I looked past him out into the crowd, I saw Alex watching, knowing we'd replaced him with someone better. That made me feel good. I knew I really didn't care how different Jeffrey was. I didn't care if he was a Martian with three heads. He was in the band and he was one of us.

There were other faces now in the crowd that I recognized, other faces I wish I had never known. Jordan, Logan, and Eric were bullying their way from the outside fringe right up towards the stage.

They looked out of place here — these three ugly goons with black leather jackets, metal-toed workboots, and monster bad attitudes — Eric with his newly shaved head, Logan with his creepy sunglasses, and Jordan with the hate screaming out from his face. Just looking at them made me realize how different I was from what I'd been. But then I realized something was different about them as well. They were here in broad daylight. They weren't just sneaking away from some crime in the night. They had come down here for a purpose and it wasn't for the music.

After about forty-five minutes, we took our break as planned. I had a kind of glow on from the thrill of the clapping and cheering from the crowd. SS had finally and truly gone public and we were a hit.

I came down from the stage with my head buzzing to find my old buddies waiting for me. “We gotta talk,” Jordan said to me, never sounding more polite or friendly, though his face said something different. I could tell he'd been drinking, which meant Logan and Eric had been as well. Who knows what else they'd been doing.

“I don't think I want to talk right now.”

“Don't worry,” Logan said. “It's cool. We just have some news we wanted to share. Good news.”

So I followed them to the end of the trailer and away from the stage. We sat down on some crates. Kelsey watched us. She looked worried and with good reason.

“I can't believe you got a loser like that playing guitar with you,” Eric said, rubbing his hand across his bald head.

“He's good, isn't he?” I said.

Eric sucked in his breath and shook his head. I think they were testing me. With their own perverse sense of loyalty, I think they wanted to believe that deep down I was still one of them.

“You remember how you used to say that we should do some real damage to that Lebanese store?” Jordan said.

“I remember.”

“Foreigners come over here stealing all the jobs, man,” Logan said. “It's not right.”

Logan had never even tried to get a job, even a part-time one. And I don't even think his old man had done a day's work or ever wanted to.

“Gotta show 'em a lesson, right?” Jordan pointed out.

“So we kicked in the window the other night. Stole some smokes and papers and stuff. You shoulda been there.”

Eric pulled out his wallet. He pulled out a fistful of bills. “And look at this. Ripped it off some Paki kid in Clayton Park last night.”

“Like taking candy from a baby.” Logan was all smiles behind his shades.

“Point is, Cody, you're missing out on all the fun. And we feel sorta bad. We've been through a lot together. We thought we should give you another chance.” Jordan was serious. I think he actually did feel sorry for me. Or maybe he had chosen to ignore Kelsey's song lyrics and liked the idea of having an up-and-coming musician as part of his crowd. Their idea of fun, though, now sounded stupid and cruel to me.

“She got to you, didn't she?” Jordan asked.

Yeah, I wanted to say. She did get to me. The music got to me. I was different now. There was no going back. But this wasn't the time for lectures.

“You guys are too much,” I said smiling. “But I'm really glad you came to hear the music.”

I left them with their jaws unhinged and walked back to the stage.

I felt much cooler, much more together when I sat back down at my drums for the second set. Meeting with my old boys didn't even faze me.

I looked over my shoulder to see what they would do next. A couple of cops were talking to them. It looked like they were hassling Jordan.

“Ready?” Kelsey asked me.

“No,” I said. I nodded towards my old friends. They were surrounded by six cops in total now. They were being led out front, out through the crowd and away from the stage. People pulled back as they were led through. I didn't understand it. We had just been talking. I knew they hadn't done anything wrong. Not today anyway. I watched as one cop grabbed for Jordan's shoulder and pushed him along. Jordan tried to jerk away from him and Eric reached over to take the cop's hand off Jordan.

When I saw two of the cops pull out their clubs, I had to react. This was all wrong. I knew exactly why Jordan, Eric, and Logan were being hassled right now. It wasn't anything they had done. It was because they looked bad, they looked tough and they looked like they might cause trouble.

But no one had a right to kick somebody out of here just because of the way they looked.

I jumped down from the stage and made my way through the crowd to where the action was.

Maybe because I was part of the band the police couldn't just ignore me when I demanded, “Why are you pushing them around? They have a right to be here.”

Three cops now had clubs in their hands. They looked good and ready to use them. Another officer was eyeing me. I had this weird feeling they knew who we were . . . they knew what we had all done.

“Get those creeps out of here,” someone in the crowd yelled. “They're troublemakers. They have no right to be here!”

The absurdity of that idiot shouting these words hit me like slap in the face. Why weren't Jordan, Eric, and Logan allowed to be here at this rally? Why should they have to leave? Was this event only for the privileged who looked normal?

“These are my friends,” I said to the police. “I invited them backstage. I want them to stay.”

I knew it was a gamble. I knew the cops had good reason to worry about these three being here. But they were here and that was something. Maybe one of Kelsey's songs would get to them. Maybe something about these people getting together to say “no more violence” would mean something. But if they were booted out of here now . . . well, I know exactly how I would feel. I'd be madder than before.

“Sorry, son,” one of the officers said to me. “These guys are trouble.” They began to push them away.

Jordan had the look on his face, the look that said he'd let someone, even a cop, push him only so far.

Kelsey and Jeffrey had followed me off the stage. They were beside me now. Everybody in the crowd knew something was going on.

“Let them stay!” Kelsey shouted at the cops. But they weren't listening. More police were moving in now. What they saw was a flashpoint, some serious trouble about to break out.

“Come on, man,” Jeffrey said, grabbing onto the sleeve of one of the uniforms. “You don't have to kick them out of here.”

I don't think the cop got a good look at Jeffrey. He just knew someone had grabbed him and he wasn't going to wait and see what happened next. He turned and swung his club. Jeffrey saw it coming. He was quick. He ducked out of the way but ended up falling on the ground.

“No!” screamed Kelsey.

Eric and Jordan used the distraction to try to get away. The cops were trying to hold onto them. Logan was down on the ground covering his head like he expected to get it next. Some of Jeffrey's friends were pushing through the crowd coming to help him. They started to push the cops away from Jeffrey and the police were pushing back. People were shoving, everybody was starting to freak, and I knew in a few seconds someone was going to get hurt.

I quickly backed away and jumped up on stage. I grabbed the mic from the stand and looked over to Barry at the soundboard. Gave him a thumb in the air. He knew I wanted the volume fully cranked.

“Okay,” I said breathlessly into the mic, making maybe the first speech I ever made in my life. “Everybody be cool.” The words reverberated off the buildings. “Just everybody be cool.”

I guess I was loud enough to make everyone at least take notice. I had their attention now. I looked over towards the disturbance. Eric and Jordan had their arms twisted up behind them. A couple of Jeffrey's friends were squared off in front of two cops with clubs. Logan was still somewhere down on the ground, I guessed, cowering. And Kelsey was right there in the middle of it. If I couldn't say the right thing, somebody would get hurt. Maybe just a face in the crowd or maybe it would be Kelsey.

“It's all a misunderstanding,” I said. I was looking at the cops but I was talking to everyone. “It's not right to throw my friends out of here. They came here like everybody else did and they have a right to be here. They're being picked on because they look like they don't fit in.”

The crowd was almost quiet, but people were all jammed up around the police. People were taking sides.

“Everybody just back off,” I said. “Yeah, just back off, okay?”

“How about it?” I said, looking at the cops, then around at the crowd. “Back off. Please.”

I saw one of the cops looking at me. He turned to the others, nodded. They backed off. Logan got up off the ground. Eric, Jordan, and Logan were now standing there with everybody watching them. That was the moment I knew I had made the biggest gamble of my life. Maybe Jordan would bust someone. Maybe Logan would think it was a great chance to turn the whole scene into a riot. Or maybe Eric would spit at one of the cops and then run for it.

Instead, someone else in the crowd yelled out, “Let 'em stay!”

“Yeah, that's right,” someone else shouted. “Let everyone stay. This is our party, right? And everyone's invited.”

A few people clapped and cheered but a lot of people were just plain confused. When things got quiet, I saw Jeffrey and Kelsey coming back up to the stage. Somebody helped both of them hop up onto the front.

I caught a glimpse of Jordan. I saw that old familiar hate on his face. He put his hands to his mouth and shouted something at me — something loud, angry, and full of the same old hate. “Forget it, Cody. We don't want to stay. You can all go to hell as far as I'm concerned.”

But no one shouted back anything at them. I watched as Eric, Logan, and Jordan weaved towards the back of the crowd and found their way out of there on their own. The cops let them be.

Kelsey was holding down a minor chord on the keyboard. I felt a twinge of loss as I stumbled back to my drum set, tripping over one of the power cords. I wondered if we had just won or lost a battle. I wondered if any of this had meant anything at all.

Kelsey launched us into “Daredevil Difference” and it all came back to me — the early days. The way I used to be. I knew I could never go back, I knew I had changed and I was hoping that sooner or later something good would happen for Logan, Jordan, and Eric, and then they would change too. Maybe. That's what I hoped for as I sat there and played my heart out on my drums in front of those people on Gottingen Street in Halifax.

After the concert, I felt oddly at home among this crowd. Everybody kept telling us what a wonderful set we played. Jeffrey introduced me to a couple of his friends. I acted like it was no big deal even though I still felt really uncomfortable and wouldn't let them get too friendly.

Kelsey introduced me to the old grey-haired woman who had given one of the speeches. “Cody, this is Maude.”

I nodded. “Hi,” I said.

“You're a good man, Cody,” she said. “I admire you for what you did. And I like your music too.”

Oh, right, like I really believed her. But Kelsey was watching me. It was another one of her tests. I wanted to pass this one. I truly did.

I pointed my drumsticks straight at the woman, “The way I figure it, lady, it goes like this. We're all different in some way or another. And it really doesn't matter. We just gotta do what we gotta do and learn to live with everybody else.”

She gave me a hug just then and I was caught off guard. She was old and she was skinny and I felt her thin, bony arms pulled tight around me with a kind of strength that shocked me. When she let me go, she playfully hit me hard on the arm with her knuckle. “Keep it up,” she told me, then turned and walked away.

Jeffrey's friends were laughing at me. I guess I looked pretty bewildered. That's when Kelsey slipped an arm around me and said, “I think it went pretty well.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Twenty thousand dollars worth of free publicity. I think we scored big.” But I knew what she meant. I just didn't have the words in me right then to tell her what I had finally figured out.

“Let's go find something to eat. I'm starving,” she said.

“Me too. But I'm broke.”

“I'm buying,” Kelsey said. “Let's stash the gear in the garage and then I'll take you out to dinner.”

“This isn't like a date or anything?” I asked.

“No way,” she said, the sweet smile on her face telling me the opposite. “You think I'd go out on a date with a big ugly thug like you?”

And I knew then that it was the beginning of something very fine. My life, for the first time in a long while, was looking pretty damn good.