Put That Pen to Paper

I tossed the baseball I’d caught at an Oriole’s game a decade ago into the air absently, catching it easily in my hand as I repeated the process over again. And then another time. The cold November wind whistled past my loose window and nipped at my feet as they sat bare on the coffee table. I sunk further into the cushion of my ratty couch.

”I think… you’ve got some lungs, but that was off-key.”

I wrinkled my nose, pondering further on what I should improve on before Shelby threw another pop-test-on-Charlotte’s-confidence. There were my vocals. I had to keep them steady, I had to project.

Keep yourself steady before
You’ve slipped through my throat
They want just a little more
Of that off-base note.

Hit them out the park and jog round their heads
Just prove their words should’ve been left unsaid.

Then there was obviously the attitude on and off-stage. The fine line between being confident and being egoistical. The fine line between becoming better and becoming a brat.

Swearing the sway of the crossroads, now.
Each road’s words perfectly untold
Eat them, shove them down their throats
We find ourselves at the throne.

Call this shot, this battle cry
I love this guilt.
It’s my choice, this thought decides,
Which of these lies I hide behind.

I snorted as I found myself translating my thoughts into horrific lyrics. Improv that you only heard at a jam session with a couple of friends. Disregarding how terrible I knew they were, I found myself writing them down in my old green notebook with that same pen that I’d found behind the piano on the same night as the incident. The pitches, notes and rhythms that could just as easily be found at a jam session being traced from their point in my mind down onto the paper in the form that I could read.

Within a few minutes, I had two- awful as they were- full songs. Some words were spelled wrong. I didn’t proofread, knowing that I’d just frustrate myself with the letters playing hopscotch-.

”Your lyrics are fine, Charlotte, I let out a sigh. Even if these weren’t very high quality in reality- I stopped myself again with a sharp inhale. I really needed to stop beating myself up about all of this.

Shelby’s voice seemed to have all of the control now. I smile slightly, running a hand through my edgy hair.

Voice, attitude, and then there was handling Ryan. What would Shelby say about that?

Let that wait, the douche-bag has it coming. You don’t have to prove anything to him, just prove it to yourself.

I coughed briefly, swallowing before trying my voice while it was still dehydrated.

“This façade bringing me down
“Repeat lies until they’re undone
“I don’t want to talk about it
“Don’t want to talk about how,” I cut myself off there before taking a large gulp of the lukewarm water.

“This light, it’s falling apart.”

*.*.*

“Hey,” I greeted Shelby as she opened to door for Danielle and I, “I hear you found a bassist?”

“Yeah,” Shelby nodded with a grim smile, “Hopefully Pete Wentz won’t be signing us anytime soon.” She joked half-heartedly. She cleared her throat before leading us downstairs, grabbing some papers off of her desk in the office along the way.

“Until we find another guitarist, it looks like we’re going to be stuck with Blink songs.” Shelby griped, handing me some sheet music. She’d written in the notes herself, having been in Marching and Jazz band throughout intermediate and high school. I cleared my throat awkwardly as Shelby gestured to a beaming bassist, coloring as I set the sheet music to the side. “Charlotte, this is Amy Walters, my neighbor.”

Ding.

My imagination flickered to a scene where the fake red hair of our bassist was bleach blond, and eyes green-blue instead of brown-.

“What d’you got up those sleeves, ginger?” Danielle challenged, sitting down at the drum kit and disregarding Shelby’s sheet music as she tapped on the rim of her snare. I recognized it immediately as the intro to Always by blink-182.

“I’ve been here before a few times,
“And I’m quite aware
“We’re dying.
“And your hands: they shake
“With good-byes
“And I’ll take you back if you’ll have me…”

Amy did surprisingly well, but was focused on her bass the whole time. Shelby harmonized with me easily. I almost stumbled with bits and pieces of the second verse since I was relying on memory, but I ended up turning out alright.

“Welcome to the band.” Danielle said gruffly, smacking her sticks down on the spare snare, causing a rumbling sound as the metal hit the drumhead softly. She was out of the room in seconds, leaving us in an awkward atmosphere.

There was a brief silence before Amy finally opened her mouth to say, “So what’re you guys called again?”

I nearly face-palm’d. Something was definitely off with this girl.

*.*.*

“Okay, next!” Shelby growled at the, even I had to admit, terrible guitarist. With the almost lethal aura Shelby was giving off, the guy was quick to pack up. Even with nerdy-looking reading glasses, she was still intimidating. “the flier says to know a song by any of seven artists. Is a song by Cobra fizzity-uckin’ Starship really that hard?”

“No?” I guessed.

Shelby spared me a glance and let out a humorless laugh, a slightly crazed look in her eyes as she ran a hand through her hair, fisting the newly-bleached strands, “Gah!” she exclaimed. “How hard is it to find a guitarist in Vegas?!”

“Hopefully not too difficult.” A male head poked through the doorway, I identified it as one of Xander’s ex-band mates, though I’d only been to two shows and couldn’t place the memory of which member he was. What had he said about one of them? “I’m one of few who can play.”

What was the word?

It was something like conventional- no, controversial? Not quite. Maybe conceptual? Nah, that was part of the title of a Biology course back at St. Charles’s…

Oh, yes, now I remember!

“Conceited.”

Shelby elbowed me in the ribs, her tone chastising, “Nice words, Charlotte.”

I shook my head, pursing my lips.

Are you going to let me stop you?

I bit my lip, my eyes flickering towards Shelby’s profile as he played Keep The Change, You Filthy Animal by All Time Low. He sang with it, his demeanor clearly showing, at least to me, that he was trying to subtly get lead vocals as well as lead guitar. He faded out after the chorus, a discreet but confident smirk on his face.

Again, supposing this was the guy- oh goodness, did I mention how unfairly attractive he was?

Supposing Xander was telling the truth, and it had to do with this guy (and I have no reason to believe that he’d lie about somebody like that), and he made it into the band, we would be so screwed over by the time we got to recording, it would be insane. I’m serious. I could spell it out for us, which, considering the fact that letters like to play hopscotch when I read them, was definitely something of slight value: S-C-R-.

“You’re in.” Shelby said as he flicked off the switch to his amp. His head snapped up to look at our table.

“Yeah?” He asked. Ding.

The image was back, the bleached hair of our faceless bassist that had insanely familiar eyes, and next to their short profile was a much taller figure: eyes the same color, down to the darker shade around the pupil, and hair dark and mussed. A guitar easily perched over their shoulder as they played the bridge of Lazy Eye.

I shook my head vigorously, staring wide-eyed at the table. Gosh, I must be going mad, voices in my head and visions of random people.

Soon enough, there would be drums sounding in my head.

“Yeah.” Shelby grinned, standing up in her seat, probably too overwhelmed with joy that she wasn’t the only guitarist in Vegas that could play her instrument without snapping a string on the third chord to notice the fakeness of his smile, the glittering sheen of pure conceit over his irises. “Charlotte here is already our vocalist, but it’d be great to have you on back-ups, or even do some dual songs, because you can sing.” She said.

Ding

I suddenly wished we’d let the kid who’d broken his string in his loud rendition of Black Mamba into the band.

His dark eyes flickered to me, “You’re Xander’s friend, yeah?”

I cleared my throat, nodding.

His eyes hardened before his smile widened (Ding), “Tell him I say hello, yeah? I haven’t seen him in a while.”

I bit my lip for a brief moment before mirroring his smile, “Definitely. He’s been raving about you, yeah, Kellan?”

His grin was suddenly very devilish, and extremely ominous.

Ding-itty ding, ding, ding.
“Yeah, I suppose he would be,” there was a pause as he quirked his eyebrow, “Charlotte, was it?”

“Hn.”