"Perfect"

Josh Ramsay stuck a long leg through window of his second floor apartment and pulled himself out to sit on the rusted metal staircase that served as an emergency fire exit just outside his bedroom. He stared through vacant eyes at the foggy, dulled horizon full of fancy high-rise buildings in the distance and watched as the Vancouver sky quickly became an even darker shade of grey than he thought possible. The clouds overhead threatened to break at any moment, and it matched his mood. Perfect. How fucking cliché, he thought, rolling his eyes hard enough to nearly give himself a headache. He shivered in the raw dampness and wrapped one arm around his torso, covering the band logo plastered across the front of his tshirt.
Today wasn’t necessarily any worse than any other day in the recent past, but Josh felt more dejected, essentially useless and so damn worthless than he had in what had comparatively been a long time in his world. He’d been trying so hard to get his life together by pushing local radio stations to play his small-time band’s music and hounding record labels to give them a chance that he had worn himself too thin. Again.
Josh was tired in every sense of the word. He could barely think straight, let alone function like a normal human being. What’s worse, was that all of that working, worrying, and concentration on everyone and everything but himself was only serving to fuck up his already fucked up sleeping habits. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually closed his eyes for more than an hour before nightmares or his ever-racing mind woke him for good. Did it matter? No, not really, not to him. He had no time schedule to keep these days, nowhere to be at any given time and no one he was expected to impress.
The tall raven-haired man pulled a pack of cheap cigarettes from the hip pocket of his jeans and balanced one between his lips while he fumbled for his lighter, then lit it. Nothing ever seemed to be as perfect as the first drag of nicotine when he felt like he could easily throw himself off the Lions Gate Bridge if he had his way. The truth of the matter was that he had too many people counting on him to do anything quite that drastic or permanent. He just felt like he was over and done with the whole hassle of living and all of the shit that everyone who called themselves a “responsible adult” should be doing.
Josh knew how young, immature and stupid it sounded in his head, but he was sick as hell of doing this so-called “life” thing, and no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t seem to make it work in his favour. Okay, maybe things could have been worse, but for all the trying he did, he really felt like everything should have improved at least a little by now. Not only were things not looking up, they’d actually gone further downhill recently, and he was not at all sure how much more he could take before he snapped for good and had to be carted off by men in white coats, never to be heard from again.
It didn’t help that his personal life with friends was, for the first time ever, pretty much non-existent, as he’d started to isolate himself about three months ago - ninety days…two thousand, one hundred and sixty hours - however he chose to look at it, when he had lost his job as a singing telegram performer due to, well, being himself. One sarcastic comment too far and he was out the door. It seemed to be only a matter of time, and the sad fact was that he was used to being told to “pack his shit and get out.” It happened during his last year of high school when he got too involved in drugs and all of the negative shit that nearly killed him twice over. It happened at his parents’ house, through no fault of their own, when they told Josh to get help and sober up or move out, and then it happened at work. A true trifecta of fuck and suck, and not the good kind.
Josh was sick of watching his life not only fall apart, but crash down loudly and dangerously all around him. Every time he seemed to hit rock bottom, the world opened up and dropped him again. He’d lost his toehold somewhere along the line and he was constantly scrambling to keep from getting completely swallowed by life. He was sick of struggling against what seemed to be a never-ending losing battle everywhere he turned.
“Fuck,” he swore out loud. “Just fuck. Fuck all this shit.” Josh took another long drag of the cigarette, exhaling and blowing the smoke straight up above his head. Might as well let it linger as long as possible - slow, painful future death be damned. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, resting his body against the iron railing behind him and ironically trying incredibly hard to relax, but having exactly zero success.
He drew one leg up to his chest, bracing the heel of his shoe on the edge of the step just below where he sat, then propped his forearm on his knee. Opening his eyes just enough to stare down at the pedestrians drifting along the sidewalks, Josh let his mind start to roam. He wondered what was so fucking great about their lives that had gotten them to leave their homes. Granted, it was nearly ten o’clock in the morning in the middle of the week, and the world didn’t stop just because he was having a bad day, bad week, bad life. Hell, he used to be one of those people. Now it seemed mindless and meaningless to him to rush around like an idiot, heading to jobs you hate just because it’s a paycheck, or to have brunch with people you despise, but have to pretend to like only because you have think you have something to gain.
Josh took one last pull of the cigarette he held between thumb and forefinger and sat up to stamp it out on the side of his shoe, leaving a grey streak of soot along the white rubber sole. He dropped the butt through the grated steps to the pavement below and wiped the line of ash off his sneaker, then reclined back on his elbows to continue silently watching and judging the people who passed through his line of vision.
Once again, for the second time in less than fifteen minutes, Josh rolled his eyes when he saw a man in a black three-piece suit quickly walk by carrying a leather briefcase. “Sell-out,” he muttered under his breath, vowing then and there to never become someone like that, someone he didn’t want to be, someone that survived solely for the benefit of others. He didn’t care that the man on the street may have worked hard for a decade to become the most sought-after children’s doctor in all of Canada, specializing in life-saving cancer treatments. All he saw was a representation of everyone in his life who had ever told him that he wasn’t good enough at one thing or another, or that he’d never be anybody special if he “didn’t get his act together.” Fuck that too.
He turned his head just in time to see a woman in tattered clothing pushing a rickety shopping cart with squeaking wheels along the side of the road across the street. At first, Josh pitied her and had sympathy for her situation, but the longer he watched, the angrier he got. One thing Josh would never be accused of was laziness. He had always worked his fucking ass off to try to keep his head figuratively above water and it was driving him to the brink of insanity. Why couldn’t she do the same? She just gave up and let life fuck her over. He realized that life was presently doing the same to him, one problem at a time, but at least he had a roof over his head and the refrigerator was semi-full. He wanted to yell down to the stranger that she didn’t have to live like that, that she could be somebody else if she tried, if she really wanted to, but he didn’t have the nerve or the energy to be that kind of asshole today.
He pushed his shaggy hair back from his eyes and wrapped his hand around one of the thin posts of the stairway, sighing heavily as he ran his thumb absent-mindedly over the textured and weather-abused metal. At twenty-two years old, Josh should have been well on his way to doing whatever it was that he was going to do with the rest of his life. At least, that’s what he’d been told since he’d gotten himself expelled from high school halfway through the grade twelve year. That had given him five and a half years to figure shit out, and he was really no closer now than he had ever been back then.
Josh had been a musician in the making since the time he could talk and reach the keys on a piano, and he had gotten exceptionally good with multiple instruments, becoming even more serious about it in his teenage years, moving from playing guitar in one band to playing drums in another, or even going solo when he had to. But, he was unknown to the world at age seventeen and the fact remained that he was still unknown. The only real change between then and now was that he thought he knew for sure that being in music was how he was meant to make his mark on the world, and he currently had three other men depending on his musical talents to make their similar dreams come true too. If that wasn’t a fucking bitch, he didn’t know what was.
Having no idea how long he’d been sitting outside on his poor excuse of a balcony, he pulled himself to stand when he felt the first drops of rain hitting his shoulders and making him shiver more than he already was. Josh ducked his head and crawled back into his apartment through the same window, closing it behind him and shutting out the noise of the street below. With all the chaos in his head, the sounds outside were getting to him as people hurried along the streets, yelling for taxis so they didn’t have to get their fancy, expensive clothing wet. Bastards, Josh mentally insisted. All of them.
He hadn’t always been so angry. If he wanted to start confessing things, it was truly the lack of feeling productive that was getting to him. He was sassy and caustic on a good day, but almost always in fun, although people often had a hard time telling whether he was being serious or just screwing with them for his own amusement to cure boredom. On a bad day, though, he just wasn’t someone anyone wanted to cross. His current approach to the world would eventually readjust itself, but not before he reached the point where he didn’t even want to be around himself. There was nothing he could do about that except bitch about every goddamn thing he took issue with and wait until the mood passed.
Before stepping out into the hallway, Josh paused briefly and glanced around the bedroom he’d been meaning to straighten up ever since he knocked a pile of books off the top of the dresser and tripped over them for the fifth time at least a week ago. He was feeling restless and a little jittery, although he wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t have the willpower or the attention span needed to clean up the disaster he’d been sleeping in. Maybe it was the storm brewing outside or maybe it was a foreboding premonition that was making him feel that way. He didn’t know and couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason. Either way, it had him on edge and every nerve in his body felt electrified.
In the past, that same antsy feeling had always accompanied the need to drink or spend some of his hard earned, or sometimes ill-gotten money on a little illegal relaxation prescribed by a friend of his who always had a full wallet and a bottomless supply of pharmaceuticals. These days, he’d been free of the worst of those vices for the last four years…mostly. He’d stayed away from heroin, his original drug of choice, but he’d occasionally sipped a little liquor to help himself think a little more clearly. It just wasn’t a necessity anymore.
He meandered through the apartment into the small living room, having no real destination in mind. Josh just knew that he couldn’t sit idle any longer. He continued on to the kitchen where he opened the refrigerator and pulled out a plastic soda bottle, twisting the cap off and raising it to his lips, swallowing quickly several times until the burn made his eyes tear. He palmed the plastic cap and wiped the side of his hand across his eyes as he leaned back against the standard white countertop and glanced over at the time on the microwave several feet away.
Eleven o’clock. Ever since he’d been fired from his day job, Josh had made it a priority to walk down to the closest music record label building and sit in the lobby nearly every day, promising himself that he wouldn’t stop until someone agreed to listen to his band’s demo CD. Today would be no different. He tightened the cap on the soda bottle and stuck it back inside the refrigerator for later. Not bothering to get any more dressed up than he already was, as he had done for the first two weeks, Josh shrugged into his battered leather jacket and zipped it, pocketing his keys, cell phone, wallet and the CD he continually hoped to show off to anyone that would be willing to hear it.
As Josh closed and locked the apartment door behind him, turning to walk in the direction of 3rd Avenue East, he realized that he’d done this so often that he knew exactly what would happen the moment he pulled open the glass door of the office and stepped inside. Glancing left, then right, he jogged across the street and continued on his way, pulling the collar of his jacket up tighter around his neck to keep the rain from running down his back. His hands were already numb, he was shivering again only five minutes into his journey, and the last thing he wanted to do was get frostbite and pneumonia. Exaggeration? Yes, but that was just the mood he was in and fuck anyone who tried to talk him out of it.
Twenty minutes later, Josh’s jeans were soaked up to the knees thanks to accidentally stepping in multiple puddles when he wasn’t paying attention and asshole drivers who splashed him as they tore around corners, not giving a damn as to who might be standing there waiting to cross the street. His jacket was mud-splattered and his dyed black hair was plastered across his forehead. In short, he wasn’t at all presentable to meet with any of the higher-ups at the record label, if they miraculously extracted their heads from their asses and realized that Josh and his band were worth hearing, but he just couldn’t care less. He had very little hope that he’d get any further in getting his demo heard today than he had the day before or the week before that. He just knew he wasn’t about to let it go until he was told to stay out of the building. Even then, there was no guarantee he wouldn’t sit outside the door on the sidewalk and make an even bigger pain in the ass out of himself if need be.
Taking a deep breath and silently cursing the weather for the appearance that he normally didn’t give a shit about now that he was at the building, Josh pulled open the front door of 604 Records and stepped inside, immediately appreciative of the heat pumping through the building that he knew would eventually chase away the cold that was gripping him as tightly as it could. He gave a half-hearted wave to the secretary he recognized behind the desk and took his usual center-of-attention seat in the lobby, right where he knew he’d be seen by anyone who walked through. The secretary caught his eye again and pointed over at the full coffee machine sitting on the table just inside the door, but Josh lifted the corner of his mouth in a slight smile and shook his head. Despite the fact that she offered it to him daily, Josh never drank the stuff, no matter how good something hot would feel in his body at that exact moment.
He slumped down in the uncomfortable wooden chair with the god-awful cheap fabric cushions and tilted his head back against the cream coloured wall behind him, keeping his eyes fixed on the same ceiling he’d memorized weeks ago. He didn’t look over as people came and went anymore. Josh had stopped doing that early on because he had promptly learned that the people who tended to walked the floor of that building were either pretentious wanna-be musicians who had no idea which end of a guitar was up, or they were delivery men dropping off more boxes of staples and copy machine ink for those elusive contracts Josh had yet to see for himself. He crossed his right leg over his left and resigned himself once again to sitting there until the building closed at five o’clock in the evening, when he’d be faced with having to make another long trek on foot back home.
Nearly three and a half hours later, Josh could feel a figure standing in front of him. The tension in the air alone would have caught his interest, but he did his best to ignore it, as no one usually spoke to him except the secretary, and that was only to ask if he wanted something to drink or to let him know that she was able to sneak the occasional donut to him from the employees’ break room. Josh still had his head tilted up toward the ceiling, having decided that today would be the day he’d add up all the tiles, then the holes in each tile just to keep from going completely crazy. “Fuck, kid, you’re here again?” a deep voice asked, breaking through the silence and forcing Josh to abandon his counting. Seven thousand, eight hundred and fifty-two, he tried to remember.
Josh sat up, pulling his eyes from the pinholes above him to the man standing in front of him. He shrugged his shoulders and offered another half-smile. He wasn’t exactly well known for keeping his mouth shut, but he didn’t want to give away how desperate he really was to be able to play instruments and sing for a living. He was walking a fine line between trying to appear nonchalant and pretending like he had all the time in the world to play the waiting game versus trying not to seem as if he didn’t care at all. “When am I not?”
“Jesus Christ,” the man grumbled, shoving his hand through his shoulder-length greying hair. “I don’t have time for this fucking shit, you know? You show up every single day and sit here like you’re some homeless idiot with nothing better to do. You aren’t some homeless idiot, are you? Nevermind, just get up.”
Josh’s eyes widened and he uncrossed his legs, suddenly a little worried that the man would grab him by the back of the collar and belt and quite literally throw him out into the street on his ass. Being at least sixty pounds heavier than Josh, he looked like he could do it, too. “Get the hell up!” the man demanded again. Josh never took very well to being told what to do, but he knew that if he wanted to make any kind of positive impression, he’d have to submit. He stood slowly, using the arms of the chair to push himself up, coming to stand nearly four inches taller than the older man.
“Follow me,” the stranger ordered, speaking gruffly to the young musician as he turned to walk past the reception desk and down a long narrow hallway lined with closed wooden doors and big glass windows. “Don’t let anyone bother me for the next fifteen minutes,” he demanded of the same receptionist who had greeted Josh when he first arrived.
Josh trailed behind the man, whose name he still didn’t know, until they reached the very last door on the right at the end of the hallway. The man grasped the silver handle and shoved the door open until it bounced off the wall behind it, nearly coming back to smack Josh in the face as he was steered into the room and told to sit. He perched on the edge of a much more comfortable leather chair and quickly wiped his sweaty palms on the knees of his jeans, catching glimpses of the stranger who had dragged him here out of the corner of his eye.
The office door slammed shut and Josh did everything he could not to jump out of his skin at the unexpected noise. The man, whose desk nameplate now read “Jonathan Simkin”, dropped down into the chair behind the desk and sat back, folding his hands behind his head and sighing loudly. “Okay, kid, what? What’s your deal? What the hell do you want? You’ve been here almost every single fucking day for the last six months and you’re obviously not gonna go away.”
“Three,” said Josh, urgently wishing he could take back his correction.
“Three what?”
“Three months. I’ve been here almost every day for the last three months. And all I want is for you…for someone…to listen to my band’s demo.” The younger man lifted his head to look Simkin in the eyes with all the forced confidence he could gather.
“And if I do this, you’ll go the hell away?” Simkin leaned forward again and refolded his hands on his desk.
“No. I’ll stop showing up if you tell me that we suck and have absolutely no shot at this, but if you give me any fucking hope at all, I’ll be back here again tomorrow. And the next day. And I’ll call and leave messages every chance I get. My band is good, dude. Just give us a chance.” Josh felt like he had tipped his hand a little too far in showing how passionate he was about getting into the music business, and he knew he probably shouldn’t have spoken that much, but he was nervous and babbling. Despite all of that, he tried to calm himself and speak as assertively as he could without letting on that he was also scared to death.
Simkin bent his head down and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers, sighing again as if Josh had just asked the man for his only working kidney after a weekend of heavy drinking. Josh knew he had this guy right where he wanted him, but he refused to let himself get too excited just yet. He wanted to hear some promising words first.
“Jesus-fucking-Christ.” The musician repressed the smile that he so badly wanted to let spread across his face. Simkin sat up and drummed his fingers rapidly against the top of the desk, making it clear to Josh that he had already made up his mind to go along with whatever the taller man wanted if it meant he’d never have to see Josh taking up valuable space in the lobby again. “Alright, fine,” he huffed after an agonizingly long period of silence. “Show me what ya got.”
This time, Josh let himself grin widely as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the familiar plastic square case containing two of his band’s very best songs. He slid it across the desk and watched as Simkin looked from the label on the case containing each band member’s contact information as well as the band name, then back up to Josh again.
“”Marianas Trench”? What the fuck kinda name is that? Like that hole in the ocean shit?”
“Something like that.” Josh nodded, having already told himself that if the band ever did get signed, they’d never reveal the stupid truth about how they came to use that ridiculous name.
Simkin mumbled something that sounded a lot to Josh like the word “unbelievable”, but popped open the case and pulled out the round blue disc. He spun around in his chair to face a CD player conveniently located behind him and slid the disc into the tray before closing it and hitting the “play” button.
Seconds later, Josh’s voice pumped through the speakers, eventually accompanied by backing vocals from the rest of the band. “Teach me how to be real and show me how to understand, don’t let me swallow…”
The song played out for the full two minutes and fifty-nine seconds while Josh watched Simkin for any clues that would tell him whether this impromptu meeting was going well or whether the singer had just wasted three months of his life for nothing. For the first two minutes, the older man sat facing the CD player, but then he turned around to face Josh again and tapped his fingers to the beat on the arm of his chair. When the song ended, he stopped the disc without letting the second track play out, then stared at the aspiring musician.
“So, what’s your name, kid?” he asked, giving it away that he hadn’t actually thought he should pay any attention to the information written on the CD case. It was obvious that Simkin would never have predicted that Josh and his band were any good. He originally acted as if Josh was just like every other privileged musician who walked in off the street wanting a record contract handed to them on a silver platter, but the singer smiled to himself when he realized that the older man knew he’d been proven wrong.
“Ramsay, Josh Ramsay.”
“Well, Ramsay-Josh-Ramsay, I have to admit that I wasn’t expecting to hear what I just heard.” He shoved the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows and sat back in his chair again. A power move, to be sure.
Josh shrugged his shoulders, unsure of how to respond to that, or even whether it was a positive or negative comment. “Surprise,” he cautiously said in his typical trenchant fashion.
“Yeah, apparently.”
Josh waited for several more minutes in the quiet before he couldn’t take it anymore. “So, do I reserve my chair in the lobby again tomorrow or are you gonna tell me that I should go beg for my singing telegram job back?”
“Neither,” answered Simkin vaguely, watching Josh with just enough intensity to make him uncomfortable.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Josh unzipped his jacket, revealing the black AC/DC tshirt he’d been wearing for the last three days.
“It means two things. One, that you have good taste in music,” Simkin said pointing at his shirt, “and two, that you have potential. Your demo is okay, but not great. It sounds like an angst-y sixteen year old kid wrote this stuff. Tell you what. Go home, write something else for me. Try a little more, then come and see me. But next time, make a fucking appointment. I can’t keep dropping my work schedule to fit you in just because you think you’re hot shit or something.”
The words about Josh’s song stung quite a bit, but that was the business. He had expected that, if not worse, so he understood, though he had tried to be optimistic by hoping for the best. He hated, hated that he hadn’t been able to produce something great right away, but at least he was given some constructive criticism. “When do you want the new stuff? How many songs do you want? What kind of music do you wanna hear?” Josh asked, rapid-firing questions at the man.
“Let’s say…two new songs. Give me the best you can write, whatever the hell it might be. And you get it to me whenever you get it to me. If you’re serious about this shit, you’ll do it sooner rather than later. If you’re not, I sure as hell won’t lose any sleep over it,” Simkin stated matter-of-factly. He pulled the CD from his player and tucked it back inside the case, clicking it closed and sticking it into his desk drawer, which Josh took to be a good sign.
The young singer nodded. “By the end of next week then,” he promised, knowing that he was potentially, no, probably biting off more than he could chew.
Simkin laughed and pointed another finger at Josh. “Kid, you do that and I really might have to sign you if you’re that fucking good. Next time you show up, bring the rest of the band. Now get the fuck out of my office so I can get back to work.” He turned to his computer, ending the conversation abruptly.
Josh said a quiet, “Thanks,” as he stood and backed out into the hallway, closing the door softly behind him. He momentarily shut his eyes and put a shoulder against the wall opposite the office to steady himself, lightly resting a hand against his stomach and trying his best not to throw up. Goddamn, he did it. He fucking did it. He was so close to getting his band a record deal that he could almost taste it. He opened his eyes again to see Jonathan Simkin staring through the plate-glass office window, smirking at him and shaking his head with raised eyebrows before he picked up the phone and turned back to his computer.
Josh hastily zipped his jacket up and walked back out to the empty reception area, unable to wipe the smile from his face. He turned to wave at the secretary on his way out when she stopped him. “You got Jonathan to take you back to his office!” she whispered loudly as she called him over closer to the desk.
“Yeah,” he said, laughing quietly, still in disbelief himself.
“What did he say?? Normally I wouldn’t pry, but you’ve spent so much time…you’ve tried so hard…you know…” She stood, pretending to straighten things on the desk and look busy.
Josh glanced around him to make sure they were still alone. He didn’t really want to talk about what was going on because he didn’t want to jinx it, but he figured he’d be seeing everyone in the building again soon enough and they’d all know what was really going on, so he was willing to risk it this once. “I showed him my demo and he wanted me to write more and come back with that.” He grinned widely at her.
“Hey! Good luck,” the receptionist said genuinely, returning his smile.
“Thanks! Gotta go! I have a lot of shit to do now!” he yelled back over his shoulder as he strode quickly across the lobby and shoved the door open, in a hurry to return home and start working on new material.
The rain had let up a little, but not enough to keep the trip home from being just as miserable as the walk to 604 Records. He had a driver’s license and would have driven, but he couldn’t borrow a car from his parents indefinitely, and he certainly couldn’t afford the luxury of owning his own vehicle when he had rent and other bills to pay. He was barely making ends meet as it was, but it seemed like all of that might be about to change. The more Josh thought about it, the more thunderstruck he felt, even though he hated to be that guy – the one who got too cocky and screwed himself over before he ever got started. Still, his hands were shaking with excitement as he keyed open the front door of his apartment and stepped in.
Once inside, he shucked off his jacket, dropping it across the back of the closest chair and paced across his apartment for at least ten minutes trying to calm himself. He rambled out loud to the empty space around him, happily enthusiastic at first, but slowly losing his cool. “Holy shit. Oh, fuck. I talked to an actual record label today. Goddamn, I did it. Fuck. Oh, lord… NowwhatthefuckamIgonnado? Two entirely new songs by the end of next week. Okay, I can do this. We can do this. What the fuck did I just get myself into?” Josh stood with the backs of his legs against the arm of the couch and let himself fall, landing hard on the cushions behind him, then he flung his arm across his eyes and groaned. “Too much fucking pressure.”
Josh’s phone buzzed against his hip and he whined again, but reached down and pulled it from his pocket.

To: Josh Ramsay
5:03pm Wed, Oct. 18
hey, it’s raining. just finished work, so let me know if you need a ride home from 604.
From: Matt Webb

Matt was the doe-eyed brunet younger guitar player of the quartet that made up Josh’s band, and he, as well as the rest of the band knew that Josh had been shopping around to try his hardest to get their music heard. Matt also knew that while he and everyone else had been spending their time working their own day jobs to pay bills, Josh had recently been focusing his daily efforts on song writing and waiting for the “suits” at the record labels to make time for him since he no longer had a true paying job to fill the hours and take him away from the music that he loved so much.

To: Matt Webb
5:04pm Wed, Oct. 18
nah, just got home. DUDE! FUCK! come over. bring mike and ian. Like…now.
From: Josh Ramsay

To: Josh Ramsay
5:05pm Wed, Oct. 18
we’ll be there as soon as we can. you ok?
From: Matt Webb

Josh thought for a minute, his thumbs dancing over the key pad of his phone as he tried to figure out how to respond to Matt’s question.
To: Matt Webb
5:06pm Wed, Oct. 18
yes and no. just get your asses over here. gotta talk to you!
From: Josh Ramsay

Josh dropped his phone onto the table beside the couch and draped his arm across his eyes again while he waited for the three men to show up. He knew it wouldn’t take them long, all things considered, but it was then that he wished yet again that he was able to afford to live closer to the more important people in his life instead of living in the cheap run-down apartment building so far away from the center of town that he could still barely afford on his own.
He had almost started to doze off, the hype and adrenaline rush from the day already starting to leave his body, and all the sleep he’d recently lost beginning to catch up to him when there was a loud knock on the door. Josh couldn’t remember whether he’d locked it behind him or not, otherwise he would have just yelled for whoever it was on the other side to walk in, not really caring that it could have been a crazed serial killer on the other side. He slowly rolled off the couch and shoved himself to stand, staggering a bit with grogginess before he steadied himself on his feet. Another impatient knock on the door annoyed him just a little, but he reached for the knob and pulled it inward, somewhat surprised to see Matt, Mike, and Ian all staring back at him, each still dressed in their work clothes. He thought for sure that they’d show up one at a time, causing Josh to have to reiterate the events of his day several times over, or, worse yet, wait around in awkward silence until they were all there to break the news.
“Well?” Matt asked, his deep brown eyes wide and hopeful.
Josh shook his head and motioned for them to move into the apartment before he spoke. The small group took the necessary steps into the living room and stood in exactly the same positions, with hands in their pockets and similar expressions of expectation. Josh nearly laughed at the sight of them, but he knew that he had that same deer-in-the-headlights look himself, just a couple of short hours ago.
“Okay, you guys, here’s the thing,” he started, taking another couple of steps closer to them after shutting the door. “I met this guy at 604 today, Jonathan Simkin.”
“Man, I know that name!” Mike exclaimed. “He’s the lawyer-slash-manager or something for that record label!”
“Yeah, that’s him.” Josh nodded and sat, throwing one leg over the arm of the chair and folding his hands in his lap.
“So, what the hell happened??” Matt’s eyes went even wider in anticipation, but Josh could barely stand to look at the younger man because he knew how much work there was left to do before anything significant could ever happen for them as a band.
“Dude! Would you fuckin’ sit or something? I could stick my cell phone charger up your ass and instantly get a full battery.” Matt was practically vibrating with energy, and as much propensity as Josh had to be the same way, this time it was driving him crazy.
Matt grinned as he, Ian, and Mike took seats on the couch, all three men sitting forward and staring at the singer. “Okay, okay, now fucking tell us! What happened out there?”
Josh felt the smile tug at his mouth again as he shifted in his seat and crossed one leg over the other. “Well, you guys know how I’ve been going out to that fuckin’ building almost every single day for months now, right?” He waited for them to nod before continuing. “Today, Simkin talked to me. He actually spoke to me! Do you fucking believe it?!” Josh seemed to acquire Matt’s energy the second the younger man sat, and the singer couldn’t stay still any longer, so he stood to walk back and forth in front of his bandmates while he talked.
“Okay, so this guy said “hi” to you. Big deal. What’s so great about that?” Ian asked, sounding both frustrated and curious.
Josh finally turned back to the rest of the group and smiled, flashing the silver metal bar through his tongue. “He didn’t just say “hi”, asshole. He talked to me. He listened to our fuckin’ demo! He said that we have a shot. We have a fucking chance, you guys. When I showed him the demo CD, he only listened to the first song, but that’s okay. He said it wasn’t great, and, word for word, he told me that it sounded “like an angst-y sixteen year old wrote the stuff,” but he also said that he wanted me to write more and make another appointment to show him the new shit! FUCK!” His grin never faltered as he retold exactly what happened in Simkin’s office.
Mike, Matt, and Ian all looked at one another with excited, but worried looks on their faces. “What?” Josh asked, a little upset that they didn’t seem to be as happy as he was about the news.
“When exactly does he want this new material?” Mike posed a good question, and luckily, it was one that Josh had already gotten the answer to.
“Aye, there’s the rub,” the singer quoted Shakespeare as he tucked his hands into his back pockets and rocked back on his heels, warily giving the bass player the answer he asked for. “I already asked Simkin when he wanted it and he said if we were serious, we’d get back to him with it sooner rather than later, so I sorta promised him that we’d have it done and in his hands by the end of next week.” He winced when he saw three jaws drop and silently hoped that Matt wouldn’t quit the band on the spot when he caught the youngest member of the group leaning forward, dropping his head and covering his face with his hands.
“Hw thl rwgnn doths?” came a muffled question from behind the brunet’s fingers.
“Dude, repeat?”
Matt sat up and rubbed his hands against his thighs. “I said, how the hell are we gonna do this? How can we possibly get this done? The three of us have jobs, man. Nine-to-fives.” He gestured at himself, then to both Ian and Mike. “We can’t just quit those and hope that this music thing works out the way we want it to.”
“Take a little time off! You have vacation hours, don’t you? Do whatever the fuck you have to do, dude. If you want this as bad as I do, you’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll go solo if it’s the only fuckin’ choice I’ve got, but I’m not gonna let this slip through my fingers.” Josh slumped back down into his chair and took a slow, deep breath, averting his eyes away from the three men presently sitting in his living room.
“No, there’s no need to get that drastic,” Ian stated, trying to calm the singer down. “We’ll figure it out. Maybe we can all try to work half-days, just for the next week and a half. We’ll see if we can only work mornings or something, then spend the afternoons and evenings writing and recording with you. How’s that sound?”
Josh sat up and stared at the drummer, letting the idea sink in before answering. “Okay, I think we can pull it off that way. We really don’t need that many songs. Only two, Simkin said. Just enough to show him that we’re better than he thinks we are right now. If I don’t eat, sleep, shower, or jerk off for the next week, we can do this.”
“Maybe we’ll try to only work until eleven o’clock instead of noon. We can’t have you going au naturel, man. Remember, we’ve done those small tours with you in the van around the province and we know what you’re like to live with if you skip a couple of showers.” Matt grinned at Josh and received a pillow to the head in response.
“Fuck you, dude,” Josh laughed, feeling a little more free than he had since he had spoken to Simkin. “Okay, I guess I can still think about writing in the shower.” The relieved look each of their faces, mocked or not, made him laugh even harder.
“So, we’ve got until the end of next week. That’s nine days, if we wait until the last second to hand this stuff over.” Ian stood and walked the length of the room until he was at the window overlooking the street. He gently shoved the curtain out of the way and stared out into the distance, watching as the lights across the city started to blink on. “What do you need from us right now?”
“Right now?” Josh questioned, chewing on the inside of his bottom lip. He hadn’t thought much about that yet. “Nothing, I guess. I need a couple days to write some new shit, then I’ll get in touch with you guys to come over so we can go over it, practice and then start recording out at my parents’ place. My dad still has the studio. I’ve got some ideas written down…-,”
“You’ve always got ideas, man,” Mike cut him off, smiling.
“Yeah, but I wanna get this right, dude. I can’t use just anything, you know what I’m saying?” Josh stood and grabbed the blue notebook from the kitchen table where he had been writing the night before. He held it up to the two men watching him and rifled through the pages, holding it out for them to see. “This right here? This is our ticket. I just have to work with it so something, anything in here makes some fucking sense. I’ll get there, I’ll get there. I just need time, which I don’t have. So, go home. Get outta here. I have shit to do.” The singer hoped that the rest of his band knew that he wasn’t kicking them out to be an asshole. He just really had to get to force himself to focus if he wanted to stick to his own self-induced, all-important promised deadline.
After saying their goodbyes and hearing each one of the men promise to drop everything he could whenever Josh called to say he needed help, he pulled out his favourite kitchen chair, twisted the cap off his third bottle of soda for the day and poised his pen above the notebook. Turning the pages and staring at his words, he could now see what Simkin was talking about. He really needed to come up with better ideas if he was ever going to make it in the music business. He might have been young, but he’d lived long enough and recklessly enough to have inspiration to draw from, so he didn’t need to continually write as if he was perpetually fifteen years old. That would never sell, not at his age. What did sell at any age was fluffy pop crap that he could never convince himself to write. Shit, this was going to be harder than he thought.
Josh finally sat up in his chair and stretched his arms above his head, moaning loudly as the ache in his shoulders and neck made itself further known. It was now two o’clock in the morning and he’d been sitting in the same position for the last seven hours without moving. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot and they were starting to burn against the harsh overhead kitchen light positioned above the table. He also realized that he hadn’t eaten all day, which would only partially explain the headache. There just weren’t enough hours in the day to stop for food with the possibility of a record deal hanging over his head. Too much frustration and not enough progress so far.
“No, I have to eat,” he said out loud to himself. In the early morning hours like that, Josh’s mind tended to latch onto his past if he let himself think too much. He didn’t love it, but it was a part of who he was, and he wasn’t so far removed from it that he could actively choose to avoid thinking about all the negative things he’d put his body through for so many years. Any time he forgot, or “forgot” to eat, there was that stupid fucking little voice in the back of his mind reminding him that he should still consider himself recovering from eating disorders, rather than being fully recovered. He slipped back into old habits way too easily, especially when he got distracted, which was why he now forcibly thrust himself up from the table and tossed a bag of popcorn into the microwave. It was easy and it was fast. It was something.
Pulling another soda from the fridge and a bottle of pain killers from the cabinet behind him to ease his throbbing head, Josh swallowed half the drink and two pills before setting both objects down on the table and clearing all of the empty cans and bottles out of his way. Shit, he really needed to cut back on that stuff or, at the very least, switch to something slightly healthier. He frowned a little at the idea of making that kind of change. The microwave beeped, pulling his attention to the sound. In his typical bad luck fashion, he burned his hand on the steam when he grabbed the bag from the top. “Shit! Fuck! Ow!”
Josh angrily dropped the bag onto the table and held his reddened, stinging palm flat against his chest. “Goddamnit, ow!” Remembering something about cold water and burns, he stuck his hand under the kitchen faucet, almost immediately being relieved of the pain. “I don’t fucking have time for this!” he growled, turning off the tap and wiping his hand dry on the back of his jeans.
He fell back down onto the chair, ripping the top of the popcorn bag open and spilling some out onto the table to save himself fractions of a second instead of wasting valuable time reaching into the bag. Pen in hand once again, Josh continued to try to expand on lines of lyrics and note phrases that he had already come up with to try to make them sound a little older, a little wiser and a lot edgier. Josh had come up with what he thought was some decent material, and maybe, just maybe, he and the band could start recording earlier than he had originally planned.
Somewhere around five a.m., with his upper body heavily draped across the table and his head down resting on his arm, Josh had a sudden scary thought that he might not be going in the right direction with his writing. He’d always doubted himself, especially in the early stages of writing, but he had never had such massive amounts of self-doubt when it came to his musical abilities before. Now he didn’t know what to do about this new feeling of inadequacy. One thing he did know was that in the end, everything he was going through would make him a better musician, even if nothing ever came out of the next meeting with Simkin.
Simkin! Josh bolted upright, accidentally knocking several plastic bottles and the long-emptied popcorn bag to the floor. “Maybe I can just meet with him tomorrow to show him this shit, see if this is what he wants,” he mumbled, ending the last word with a loud yawn. “Universe, if you’re fucking listening, let me have this one. I really, really need a fucking break.” He stood, leaving his notebook open and full of words that he wasn’t sure made a bit of sense. Making his way through the darkened apartment, Josh only got as far as the living room couch where he collapsed, and, for the first time in weeks, slept straight through until late morning when the sun finally snaked its way through the curtains that Ian had moved aside the night before and hit him square in the eyes.
“Ungh,” Josh moaned through a mouth that felt like he’d been sucking on cotton all night. He rolled over onto his back and covered his face with a pillow to block out the offensive light. “Too fucking early. FUCK! EARLY!” His eyes widened and he tossed the pillow to the floor as he fought with his lanky limbs, twisted and tangled in the blanket that he had pulled over himself sometime after he had fallen asleep. He had to get up. He had to go see Simkin. What time was it?
Shit, there was no time for a shower, though he needed one in the worst way. And a change of clothes. He was still wearing the same thing he’d been wearing now for the fourth day in a row, but there was no time for that either. It was nearly noon and the best Josh could do was quickly scrub some toothpaste across his teeth and gel his hair so that the greasy look seemed more natural. That would have to do, he decided, staring into the mirror for a full minute longer than he had intended before running through the apartment and collecting his cell phone, keys, jacket and notebook, in that order.
He flew to the front door of the apartment, hurriedly locking it behind him. Josh jogged for the first two blocks to try to make up the time he’d lost by oversleeping, then taking the time to pee before he left the house. Sticking the notebook inside his jacket so that his hands were free, he slowed to a walk and used his phone to look up the telephone number for 604 Records. If Simkin had told him to make an appointment the next time he wanted to be seen, he damn sure wanted to follow instructions and not ruin whatever chance he might have had.
“Hello? I’d like to make an appointment to see Jonathan Simkin, please,” Josh requested of the receptionist who answered the phone. He recognized her voice as belonging to the same one who always greeted him. Josh didn’t have time for small talk, but he had to waste precious moments explaining that no, he did not have finished new material already, but he still wanted to talk with Simkin. When? Before the office closed today, if possible. What the hell did she mean he wouldn’t be in his office after twelve-thirty? “I don’t know if I can get there before then,” the singer complained, mentally screaming at himself for ever going to sleep in the first place. He still had fifteen minutes of walking to do and it was now after twelve o’clock. “I’ll be there! Don’t let him leave!”
Josh picked up his pace and ran harder than he ever had before. The problem was that he was a musician and a smoker, not an athlete. He might have been able to hold a note longer than most people he knew while singing, but he was completely out of shape for something like running, and it showed early on. His lungs burned and threatened to give out while his heart pounded in his chest faster than his feet hit the pavement. By the time he reached the door of the record label building, he was fighting for breath and a little afraid that he would drop dead right then and there. His hair was yet again splayed across his forehead, this time drenched in streams of sweat instead of rain. Josh was in no better shape than he was the day before when he had showed up looking like he had entered a boxing ring with Zeus and had come out the loser.
Yanking the door open, he nearly tripped over his own feet as his legs had turned to jelly sometime over the last three blocks. Josh made his way to the reception desk and leaned over, putting his hands on his knees and panting. “Simkin?” he wheezed, speaking to his shoes until he was able to stand again.
The secretary came around the desk with a paper cup of cold water and held it under Josh’s nose. He took it gratefully and righted himself, putting a hand against the cramp in his side as he raised the cup to his mouth and gulped rapidly. Laughably, he realized that even if he’d showered, it wouldn’t have done any good.
“I’m sorry, honey, but Jonathan had to leave. He walked out the door five minutes ago, just before you came in. You probably passed him pulling out of the parking lot.” The look on the secretary’s face was sympathetic, but Josh felt like he’d just been kicked in the balls. “Are you okay?” she asked, as the colour drained from his face.
Josh crumpled the paper cup in his hand and turned towards the rows of chairs he’d spent so many hours sitting in, waiting. So much wasted time… The secretary took the trash from him and tossed it into the garbage can before guiding him over to one of the seats and pressing down on his shoulder to get him to sit. “I just need a minute,” he uttered dejectedly, hunching forward and wiping his face with his hands, then rubbing his hands against the knees of his jeans.
“Take all the time you need, sweetie,” she said, patting his shoulder gently and moving to sit behind her desk once more to continue her work and give him some space.
He nodded and whispered a nearly inaudible, “Thank you,” as he tried to focus on his breathing so he wouldn’t pass out. Some affect that would have on the people he wanted and needed to impress.
“Fuck, I got all the way out to my fucking car and forgot my phone,” a familiar voice said to Josh’s right, as footsteps carried the words away.
The singer sat up, staring wide-eyed at the secretary. “Was that…?”
She smiled and nodded. “Go! Catch him! I shouldn’t be telling you that, but if he asks, I tried to stop you.”
Josh stood on shaky legs, unsure of whether he’d be able to make it across the lobby, let alone down the lengthy hallway, but his nerves drove him and he reached Simkin’s door in time to see the older man rummaging around in his desk drawers. “Where the ever-loving fuck did I put it?”
“If you’re looking for your phone, it’s right here,” Josh said, looking around and grabbing the small silver object from the top of the filing cabinet at his eye-level just inside the office.
“Thank fuck,” Simkin acknowledged, without looking up. He jammed every object he had pulled out of the desk back into their respective drawers and held a hand out for the phone.
“No,” Josh countered in a bold move that could not only end his career, but his life, and he mentally prepared himself to be hit. He held the phone against his chest as if that would stop Simkin from simply reaching out and taking it. “Not until you take five minutes to talk to me. I was told you’d be here until twelve-thirty and it’s only twelve twenty-five.”
Simkin finally raised his eyes to the younger man and glared, recognizing the musician in front of him. “What? You again? I told you to make a fucking appointment the next time you wanted to see me, and that’s not until the end of next week, supposedly. I have to get outta here. I’m already late for a meeting. Now give me the fucking phone and schedule an appointment.”
“No! I need your help. Please. Just give me five minutes and then I’ll go,” Josh promised, holding the phone out and allowing Simkin to take possession again.
“Goddamn it, fine. But you only have four minutes now. Talk, and make it fast.”
Josh reached inside his jacket, extracting his notebook and opening it, setting it down while Simkin sat and dragged his chair up to the desk. He pulled the glasses from the top of his head and put them on, reading silently while he flipped through the pages. “Okay, so what the hell do you want from me here?”
Stepping up to the edge of the glossy wooden desk again Josh raised his hand and gestured to the notebook. “Dude, I just wanna know if any of this is any good, if any of this is what you were hoping to see. I wanna know that I’m on the right track. I can’t afford to fuck this up.” The last thing Josh wanted to do was completely lay himself open and admit to being as worried about everything as he was like that, especially in front of the man who held his fate in his hands, but the stress and panic of the morning had gotten to him and he already felt a little broken and transparent anyway, so he might as well give away that one secret he was trying to keep from Simkin.
“Alright, you want the fucking truth, kid, here it is. This is shit. This whole thing is a grown up’s game now. You’re not some high school punk anymore. Write like an adult and maybe you’ll get somewhere.” Simkin closed the notebook and stood, rolling the chair back under the desk. He slipped his phone into his pocket and brushed past Josh before turning around once more. “Next time, make a goddamn appointment,” and then he was gone.
“Fuck,” Josh sighed, gathering up his notebook and tucking it back inside his jacket. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” That wasn’t the news he wanted to hear at all. He rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and bit the inside of his cheek. “C’mon, universe. I thought we had a fucking deal.” He slammed his fist down onto the desk once before turning around and making the walk back down the hallway to the reception desk.
The secretary looked at him with a hopeful smile, but all Josh could do was shake his head, continue through the front door and out into the street. He was frustrated, and, as always, he felt like shit for getting knocked down a peg or two. He really hoped he was doing something right, and it hurt like a bitch to be told for the umpteenth time in his life that he wasn’t good enough.
Josh used the time he spent walking back home to make phone calls to Matt, Ian, and Mike to let them know what had happened. He left the same voicemail message for each man, considering they couldn’t spend time answering their phones because they had better things to do than getting their hard work crushed under the heel of the only person who currently mattered. “Dude, it’s me. I just went to see Simkin ‘cause I wanted some input. Apparently my lyrics suck worse than a two dollar hooker with braces, lockjaw and a penchant for biting. Back to square one.”
The second Josh walked into his apartment, he grabbed another bottle of soda from the refrigerator and sat down in the same chair he had vacated not long before the sun came up. Everything was just a repeat of the day before, and if he believed in déjà vu, he was certainly experiencing it. He wryly wondered if he could buy himself a little more time due to injury if he jammed the dirty fork he had left lying in his sink for the past few days into his eye. Josh shuddered at the thought and decided against it.
He had finally gotten into what he felt was a good groove with a short string of words that he had quickly fallen in love with when his phone rang. “Yeah, Matt?”
“What’s the problem, man? What went wrong? Why didn’t Simkin like your stuff? You’re so good with this lyric writing thing.”
Josh sighed loudly into the phone to let the younger man know that he was already upset that things hadn’t gone well. Ignoring the questions, he focused on what the guitar player had said about his lyrics. “I used to be good at writing. And I still might be if you fucking let me get back to it.”
“Just hurry, Ramsay. We don’t have that much time,” Matt reminded him, as if he needed to be told.
“I know, I know. Fuck, Matt, I’m well aware.”
“Let me know if you need anything.” The two ended the call and Josh bent over his notebook once again.
Scribbling out a few more words, Josh came up with the first line of what he thought could be a decent song – “I never took you for a trick but sometimes, I don’t know what you want.” Mumbling to himself, he spoke out loud and nodded along, listening to the flow of the words. “I, I can’t take this, so take it out on someone else”, he jotted down, crossing it out when he realized he instantaneously hated the second line. “No. That fucking sucks.”
A better idea struck and Josh felt a second wind that almost, but not completely, knocked out the severe need for sleep he’d started to feel again. His words finally sounded like they could possibly belong to a gritty pop or punk song instead of something typically written by a depressed thirteen year old. “I can take it if you need to take this out on someone.” “Yes!” he said, sitting up straighter in his seat, feeling even a bit more revived. And on it went for the next twelve hours until suddenly Josh’s eyes snapped open and he realized he’d fallen asleep sitting up.
“No, can’t sleep. No time,” he slurred, carefully standing and stumbling across the small kitchen to the refrigerator, where he took out an apple and yet another bottle of soda. Taking a bite of the fruit, he twisted the cap off the bottle and chugged it, completely ignoring the sting of the carbonation. Caffeine, sweet energy. He finished the bottle and opened another before taking a second bite of the apple. Josh couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten a full meal, but there was just no time for cooking or wasting that much energy on something so temporarily insignificant. He’d have to subsist on fruit and popcorn - anything that he could eat quickly with his left hand while he wrote with his right.
Even as he threw the carnage of his meal away, he could feel his stomach rumble and he poked at his belly. “Hang in there. You won’t get real food again for at least another week.” Josh shook his head. “Now I’m fuckin’ delusional.”
Deciding that he needed some kind of short break from staring at his words and reading them over and over so many times that they didn’t make sense to him anymore, Josh dragged his body into the living room where he curled up on the couch, propping his feet up on the coffee table and crossing his legs at the ankles. He set his computer on his lap and opened it, making the choice to finally check further into a new social media site he’d recently joined so that all three of his band’s fans could keep up with any news, possible tours…suicide of the lead singer due to frustration at lack of talent and ability…,he grimly thought, and so forth. He’d yet to actually post any messages, despite having had the page since he signed up for an account the day he was fired from his job, but somehow he still had a handful of people who were willing to follow whatever stupid shit he would eventually say. Tonight would be the first time he’d write anything there, and he elected to say something snarky and clever in hopes that it would draw in a little more attention for himself and the band. “Let’s play a game called Josh Says where you do whatever the fuck I say. Ready? Josh says: tell @604Records to sign MT. Go.”
It was only seconds before someone replied, and Josh rolled his eyes at the stupid comment. “First ever! Hi @JoshRamsay!” He didn’t know the “first comment” shit was still a thing, but he answered anyway. It was a bit of a chore, but a complete necessity to reach out to fans, and he certainly wasn’t above that. As he was leaving his message in response, several more appeared, most asking if he was the “real J.R. from M.T.” or telling him that they had seen as an opening act at some very local concerts recently. Yes, that was who he was; yes, he was glad to be able to interact with his fans; yes, he was happy that they recognized his name; yes, he hoped they were doing well. He threw any and all pleasantries that he could muster at everyone for being so out of touch with reality due to sleep deprivation and stress.
Eventually one comment caught his eye. “@JoshRamsay Saw you 4 months ago at summer festival in town. What’s new for MT these days?” Josh hesitated with his hands over the keyboard, wondering if he should talk about what was going on with Simkin or not. Ultimately, he thought that since he’d already composed that first message about 604 Records, he might as well expound on things just a little, being that he had no legal obligation or rules restricting him. “@RattleTheSky Working on new songs. Possible record deal soon! Wish us luck.”
That message alone brought an onslaught of replies, and he tried his best to respond to each one. He managed, after nearly forty-five minutes. Luckily, or unluckily, his fanbase was relatively small, so it was easy to read what each person said, answer them, feel like he’d accomplished something, and make everyone happy.
One last response from the same fan he had spoken to earlier made the night a little easier to get through. “@JoshRamsay Good luck! Wish you nothing but the best! Please sing to me!” That made him smile. He’d gotten personal requests like that before, and each time it was a small ego boost, which he very much needed at the moment. “@RattleTheSky Come to the next show, whenever it is. Pretend the concert is for you.”
Yawning, Josh realized that if he stayed still for much longer, he’d fall asleep again, and he couldn’t afford to do that. He had to get back to work. Deadline, deadline, deadline, he mentally chanted as he turned off his laptop and closed it, moving it from his legs to the coffee table and swinging his feet back down to the floor.
The singer spent the next three days writing both lyrics and sheet music for two brand new songs that he felt were things that Simkin wanted to hear, stopping only once for a quick shower when he caught a strange smell that he eventually came to realize was himself. By that point, Josh was light-headed, somewhat punch-drunk and extremely unsteady on his feet due to lack of sleep and proper food, but he forced himself to keep going. He couldn’t stop, not now. Not when he was so close to the deadline and there was still so much left to finish.
Nine o’clock on Saturday evening found Josh sitting behind the control board of Little Mountain Sound Studios for the fourth consecutive hour. It was owned and operated by his very own father and located directly off the back of his parents’ home, only mere metres from Josh’s old childhood bedroom. The studio hadn’t been in much use these days, as his father was slowly winding down the business in preparation of selling the equipment so that he could retire and spend more time with his family versus the whiny, entitled musicians with a God complex that he so often came in contact with.
Josh pressed the speaker button connecting him via intercom to the guitar player, who sat in the sound booth behind several differently angled microphones. “Do it again, Matt. It was close, but not quite there. Try waiting another beat before you come in and maybe take the hook up another half-step.” Matt nodded and Josh let go of the speaker button, turning to position his finger over the jog wheel on the console panel to his right in order to amp up the sound that he knew would be coming through the speakers the second he said the word.
Tedious shit, the production side of music, but if he wanted it done and done right, he’d have to do it himself. Luckily, Josh had grown up around all of the electronics in front of him, and because of that, he knew exactly how to use it all. He was no true expert by any means, but he knew enough to make a semi-professional sounding demo that usually wowed anyone who heard the music. Besides, he had no money to pay someone else to do it, and his father wouldn’t help because he wanted Josh to “stop screwing around and get a real job.”
Pressing the speaker button once more, he said, “Okay, whenever you’re ready, dude.” Matt nodded again and waited for the older man to give him the hand signal that he was free and clear to play what was written on the sheets situated on the music stand in front of him. He fixed his hold on the guitar across his lap as the singer held up a hand, counting down from three seconds. Josh pushed both the record and playback buttons so Matt could hear Josh’s rough cut vocals and guitar part through the headphones he had just readjusted, allowing him to be able to fill in his own more steady, streamlined lead guitar riffs.
After a second, as directed, Matt’s guitar solos poured into the room and Josh drummed the beat to the music out on his lap with his hands, eyes closed as he listened to the notes and chords that he had so carefully written finally being played by someone other than himself…for the thirty-seventh time in a row. He was unbelievably sick of hearing the sound. The singer realized early on in his life that nothing made him hate his own music more than practicing and recording it until it was as perfect as it was ever going to get.
Halfway through the song, Josh hit the button a second time to stop recording and stood, shaking his head. He was getting more irritated with everything as time went on, and no one could blame him…he hoped. He walked around Mike and Ian and pulled the door of the sound booth toward him. Stepping into the room, he opened his mouth and took a breath, ending it in a heavy sigh. “Well?” Matt asked, looking up at him with slightly narrowed eyes, folding his hands together across the body of his red and white streaked Stratocaster. Josh simply stared at him, not quite sure how to tell his friend that the guitar part just wasn’t working out the way he’d wanted it to and that he’d have to rewrite it. “C’mon, man, fast words make it easier. We just don’t have time for this. What?”
“This all sounds like shit, dude. It’s not you,” Josh explained, rushing his sentence. “Fuck. It’s the music. It’s just not right. Something about it isn’t working. I have to rewrite your part and mine, at least.” He rested his body alongside the doorframe, leaning his head against it and appearing more exhausted than anyone had seen him in years.
The discouraged look on Matt’s face hit Josh straight in the gut. He didn’t know if it was just the fact that he hadn’t slept in…he’d lost count of how many hours-leading-into-days, and everything was just feeling like it was too much, or whether he simply hated to fail people, or even whether he was more upset with himself for not getting things right on the first, second, third or even fourth try that got to him the most, but no matter what the exact reason, it made him feel like absolute hell. “I’m sorry, dude, I really am.” He pushed himself up and away from the door, turning back to the other two men who sat watching him. “I’ll be back in a bit. I need to go take a fucking walk or something.” The singer shouldered the door open and let it thump closed behind him, walking out into the darkness and leaving his bandmates both confused and a little thrown by his actions.
Josh had gotten as far as the back gate of his parents’ house when his phone rang. He hoped to any deity listening that it wasn’t the band calling him back, but he also knew that he didn’t have the patience for talking to anyone, no matter what the call could be about. Answering the call anyway, Josh immediately regretted the decision when he had to endure a close friend asking if he wanted to go to some party somewhere. The singer had never usually been one to turn down a good time, though he’d been doing much less partying than ever before since he’d been through hell…ahem…rehab…and, although he truly believed that it might help to clear his head to let loose a little tonight, he just couldn’t go. There was still too much to do and not enough time to get it done. Even once all the parts of the songs were tracked and recorded, he needed to edit it all together, which would easily take the most time. It wasn’t hard work, but it was time consuming and occasionally downright infuriating. “I can’t, man. I’ve got something going on that I can’t just fuckin’ walk away from.”
He jostled the gate open and slammed it closed again as he listened to his friend tell him what a great party it was, how Josh never seemed to have time for anyone anymore, how it wasn’t fair that he and everyone else in their group of friends were constantly extending invitations to Josh to go somewhere, do something, get together in some way, and Josh continually turned them down. Finally, sleep deprivation and emotions got the best of him and Josh practically yelled into the phone as he walked down the driveway to the road, “Dude! I’m fucking sorry, but I can’t do it. If the point’s to never disappoint you, somebody’s got to tell me what to do. I have too much…there’s…I just can’t. I gotta go.”
Josh shut his phone off to avoid having to potentially hear all of that shit for a second time that night, should anyone else call for the same reason. Giving no real thought to where he’d end up, he quickly made his way down a dirt walking path behind his parents’ house known as Sword Fern Trail and continued a short way into the same woods where he and friends had spent a countless amount of time screwing around as teenagers. It probably wasn’t the best choice of places to go for a multitude of reasons, but Josh just didn’t care. He just needed to get away from everything, including himself, for a while. Though he couldn’t get away from his own mind, he could at least get lost for a short time.
Tripping twice over small branches that he hadn’t expected, Josh somehow found his way in the dark to the small area that he and his friends had set up years prior. They had spent quite a few long hours one weekend clearing away brush and undergrowth until there was nothing but packed dirt and mud beneath them. Eventually, they were able to roll some smaller fallen trees to form a lopsided circle where they could sit around a fire pit for hours into the night, drinking, smoking and laughing about it all. Weeds and small bushes had grown up around it over the years, but it was still there. He knew it would be. He hoped it would be. He needed it to be.
Josh carefully but blindly felt his way around in the dark aided solely by only what he remembered should be there and the moonlight that filtered sporadically through the leaves still left on the trees this late in October. He sat down on the closest log, still damp from the recent rain. Pulling his phone back out of his pocket after realizing he was more than a little nervous about sitting alone in the dense woods around him, he turned it on just for the company that came from the dull light on the small screen. Minutes later, Josh decided that he just…simply…wasn’t cut out for being alone. Ever. It left him with an unnerving, empty feeling and some old recurring thoughts that he’d rather not be thinking.
Instead of being smart and turning around to go back to the house he grew up in, he used his phone to check into the same social media website online that he had finally given into and posted on three nights before. He was still close enough to civilization to have some kind of signal on his phone, despite it being weak, but he was able to log on to see what kind of messages had been left for him. Josh scrolled through the very short list of people saying hello, telling him that they loved his band, welcoming him to the site (“finally”), and a few very personal fan inquiries that he preferred not to answer. He chose to reply to one question from the same person he’d interacted with before. “@JoshRamsay Dude! New stuff soon? Rec deal? Awesome! How’s the writing process going? Write faster!! Can’t wait for a real album!”
Josh sighed quietly and regretted that he hadn’t brought a jacket with him when he’d stormed out of the house as a shiver surged through his body, but he tried to ignore the chill in the air as he turned his attention back to the message that he wanted to answer. As fucking pathetic as he felt to even think about admitting that he had gotten so overwhelmed by everything having to do with writing and recording that he’d very literally run away from home, walked out on his band, and was currently pouting like a little kid and sitting in the middle of a forest by himself at ten p.m. on a Saturday night – hardly the life of a rockstar-, he chose something different but equally pathetic as a response instead. Somehow, he felt like that made him sound less like a brat and more like an adult with serious writer’s block. “@RattleTheSky Having a fuckin hard time. Really tough. Sometimes TOO hard. Just wish you could’ve seen me when it used to come so easy.” Josh hit the “submit” button and decided that he didn’t want to risk reading any more questions like that, which could so easily send him to a darker place than he’d been in a long time. He’d had enough fan interaction for the night. He couldn’t keep hiding out like he was and he realized soon that he had to get back to the studio before he lost everything he’d been working so fucking hard for.
Slowly making his way back to the house, Josh gave a lot of thought to what he’d said in reply to the single fan he’d spoken to tonight. What did he mean when he said that he wished she could have “seen him when it used to come so easy”? What could he have meant by that? At the time, he had only wanted to explain that the whole practice of writing and recording, especially doing it mostly by himself, was damn fucking taxing and it was driving him a little crazy, but the more he tried to interpret his own words, the more meanings behind them he found.
Writing was always something that Josh had done alone. He would get input from the rest of the band, but essentially, the words were always his. Nothing there had changed. That all used to come extremely naturally to him when he spelled out exactly what he was thinking when he was doing it for his unknown band to play at small, intimate shows. Now that Josh was supposed to be writing for the world and not just for himself, he felt like he had to keep so much more of his life private, and that he needed to write obscurely and wrap everything in metaphors, which made the process that much more challenging.
Josh had always used very vague parts of his own history as a way to create. Through pain comes art, he’d always found to be true. Painters can cover a canvas in blue to reveal hurt, but they don’t need to depict the problem directly. With book authors, they can make up fictional characters to take on their problems. But with song writers, himself in particular, Josh had come to the conclusion, even as a kid, that somehow, the lyrics had always personally directly mirrored his own feelings. He chose to write about the things he felt, not only because they made for good songs, but because that was the only way he knew to get his worries off his chest and out of his mind, even if no one else could relate.
The singer placed a palm against the pine tree to his left, stopping where he stood when he realized that he was now close enough to the house to see the streetlights through the trees. Even though he didn’t like the feeling of being alone out there in the dark, he wasn’t quite ready to leave the quietness of the woods behind. The inside of his head was such a mess and he couldn’t stop thinking, so Josh sunk back against the tree, feeling the rough bark through his tshirt. He winced once when a small broken twig jabbed him in the shoulder blade, and moved to stand a little more comfortably, still trying to reel in the thoughts that were running rampant.
Things were more different with his writing now than they had been before. There were instances in his life that no one else needed to know anything about. There were things he had to keep for himself without allowing everyone to see right through him. Maybe someday in the far distant future he’d be willing to talk about his past in interviews, but Josh sure as hell didn’t want those things to be anyone’s first impression of him. He didn’t want anyone to buy his record because “the poor lead singer of Marianas Trench had a hard life and needs someone to feel sorry for him.” No fucking way. Josh folded his arms across his chest in a feeble attempt to warm himself until he was ready to take the rest of the steps back to the studio.
It was good in theory, trying to stay away from writing about direct things, but the problem with all of that became having to twist situations so that they weren’t nearly as obvious as they could be, and sometimes just the thought of writing about his life became entirely too difficult. It was not only mentally exhausting, but it hurt. It physically made his chest ache to dredge up those memories again, but he occasionally did it anyway, even if those words were never turned into songs, or the songs were never played for anyone but himself. Josh had always been very honest in his writing, refusing to ever compromise himself and compose something he didn’t believe in. And what he believed in was the truth.
Using the soft light emanating from his phone as a way to avoid tumbling over the same branches he had fallen over on the way out, Josh decided he’d been gone for too long and pushed himself away from the tree, slowly making his way back to the house. His thoughts continued to try to tackle him to the ground, harshly doing their best to make him understand that ever since losing his job, he hadn’t exactly been the easiest person to get along with. His attitude was steadily getting worse, especially now that he was under so much pressure. He used to be a relatively stable person, past issues aside, but the anger was getting to be a problem, and he had to do something to rectify it. First, he had to apologize to the band, and then he had to get some sleep because if he didn’t, either they would kill him or the lack of rest would.
Stupid luck was on his side for a change and Josh reached the back gate of his parents’ home without incident almost exactly an hour after he had left. His hike in the woods hadn’t done anything but serve to make him feel a little worse about himself, but at least he had been able to reflect on everything that had been swirling around in his head lately. Now it was time sit the rest of the band down and explain it all to them. He shoved his phone deep into his pocket and walked back into the studio to see Mike, Matt, and Ian sitting around in a circle, quietly discussing something - him, most likely. Each man closed his mouth and looked up when the singer stepped into the room.
Before saying a word, Josh sunk down into the last available chair and briefly looked each of them in the eyes. “Sorry. I just…I just had to get outta here for a little while. Listen, you guys, I have to talk to you. We have a lot of work to do and…,” he paused, staring down at his lap, “I don’t know if I can do this. There’s just so much…I haven’t slept… Christ, there’s just…,” he trailed off, stammering and unable to speak as coherently as he wanted. Josh reached up to yawn and rub at his bloodshot eyes with the heels of his hands.
“C’mon, Superman. You can do this. It only feels like shit now because this is what you always do. You write, you hate it, you rewrite and it gets better,” Mike said, bending over to pat Josh’s knee once before sitting back in his own chair. The bassist’s words were obviously meant to help; unfortunately, Josh was already feeling so low that it only crushed his spirits even further. Mike was right, but it was further proof that Josh could never get anything right on the first try, and that bothered him to no end.
“Superman,” he sarcastically mimicked, raising his head to look over at the bass player. “Bullshit. I wish that was the case. I wish I had more time. I wish I could do this, but I just can’t.” Josh shook his head, brushing his hair back out of his face and regretting that he hadn’t taken the time to smoke a cigarette or two when he was sitting out there in the woods. He reached into his pocket to pull out the pack and his lighter before remembering his father’s first rule – no smoking, eating or drinking around the production equipment. He had to do something to stop the trepidation that was threatening to drive him to do something extremely stupid, so he stood and headed for the door again. “I wish I was better at this shit, but I’m not. I’m not as fucking good as I should be, as good as I thought I was. It’s just not that easy.”
“Josh, hang on a minute. What’re you talking about? And where the hell are you going now? You can’t keep fucking running out on us, man. We’ve gotta get this done. Stay here. Let’s work on this stuff together. You are good enough. We all are. You just have to work at it, you know that.” Ian narrowed his eyes at the singer. A few years older than the singer, he was a little wiser and had a little more logic, and what he said made sense, although he wasn’t telling Josh a thing that Josh, himself hadn’t already thought about. “C’mon, we’ll all help you. That’s what we’re here for. We’ll get this done and we’ll get it to Simkin on time. We have to stick together, though. We need you.”
Turning back to face the drummer, Josh shrugged, pack of cigarettes in one hand and the lighter in the other. “Dude, I’d love nothing more than to just fucking sit down and write some brilliant shit with the Midas touch everyone thinks I have…should have…whatever. I want that like you wouldn’t believe. I wanna work with music and I wanna find a way to stay in this business for the rest of my life, but what if I can’t? I’d like to say that it’s easy to stay, but it’s not for me. I can’t do it. I want this so fucking much… But maybe I’m just not fucking meant to do it.”
“Josh.” Matt stood and took a step closer to the older man, reaching a hand out as if he wanted to catch Josh’s arm. The singer ignored the gesture and turned to face the door again. He switched the lighter into the same hand that held his cigarettes and stopped with his hand on the doorknob, head bowed. “C’mon, you’re being way too fucking hard on yourself. You’ve never acted like this before. You’ve got great ideas and you’ve got all of this stuff almost right where you want it. If you walk out again, we’re screwed. We need you,” he said, reiterating Ian’s earlier words.
The singer spoke so quietly that the younger guitar player was the only one who caught what he said next. “I’ve never acted like this before because I’ve never fucking had this much at stake. You’ve got the music in your hands, Matt. You can rewrite it. You can do this without me. Whether I’m in the room or not…it doesn’t matter anyway, ‘cause I’m barely here at all.”
Josh left the studio in the same way he had an hour and a half earlier, this time only wandering as far out as the edge of the property, sitting with his back against a tree that he used to climb when he was just a kid and had no worries except a scraped knee or having his lollipop fall in the dirt. Josh missed the times when that constituted a bad day as he took a drag of his newly lit cigarette and very slowly exhaled, noticing the way the smoke billowed from his mouth and danced in front of his face, backlit by the lights from the house. Smoking was wrecking his voice, which he really couldn’t afford to do as the lead singer of a band, but it was the only repetitive bad habit he still had left from all those he’d left behind, and he damn sure needed it now and then. It helped to calm him down when his head was full of white noise that he couldn’t turn off.
What he had last said to the band was right. Josh truly felt like he was only ghosting through life these days. That wasn’t living, that was simply existing. He wasn’t eating, he wasn’t sleeping, he hadn’t seen his long-time friends in months, and now, even the dream he’d had of being a musician since he was about two years old was under the threat of never happening because he just wasn’t good enough to pull it off.
“Fucking suck it up, Ramsay. Stop acting like some spoiled asshole and get back inside,” a voice behind him said, scaring him enough to make him drop the cigarette he’d been craving for hours.
“Fuck,” he swore, picking the stick of nicotine up out of a sloppy muddy spot near his hip. “What the hell, Matt? Don’t fucking sneak up on me like that!” Josh angrily stamped the cigarette out, not wanting to put the stupid thing back into his mouth now. He pulled a leg up to his chest, stretching the other out in front of him while he waited for his heartbeat to steady again.
“I didn’t sneak, I walked. You just had your head so far up your ass, feeling sorry for yourself that you didn’t hear me. Now let’s go. We have shit to get done and you’re doing nothing but pouting because you didn’t get everything right on the first go. Who does? No one’s that good.” Matt stood in the shadows, but it looked like he had his hands on his hips and Josh was certain that he could see the frown on his friend’s face, even in the dark.
“I’m not pouting.” Yes he was. “I’m thinking.” That much was honestly true.
“Well, think inside. You made the promise to Simkin to get this to him by the end of the week, not us. I know that you’re always your worst critic and this is obviously not a rare thing, but you’re taking it too far. You’re not bad at this shit. You’re just a fucking perfectionist. That’s part of what makes you who you are. It’s part of what makes you such a good musician. But you can’t drop off the earth now, because, despite what you may think, we really can’t do this without you. You might be worried that you won’t get a record deal, but just remember that if you slack off, you’re screwing over the rest of us, too, so get off your ass and let’s get back to work. Please.” The guitar player held a hand out to Josh, who grumbled quietly and hesitated for a second or two, but took it and allowed himself to be dragged to his feet.
“Okay, okay. Fuck it. You win, let’s go.” The two walked back into the studio and all four men were soon crowded around the small desk to fix the words and melodies that Josh had claimed weren’t good enough.
“Before we start this, you’re not gonna walk away again, right?” Mike questioned, raising an eyebrow at the singer. “I know this is all tough on you, but we don’t have time to screw around. We have a really, really close deadline that we have to meet, and you know I’m not usually one to bitch about stuff, but…-”
Josh flashed an almost sincere smile at the bassist before cutting him off mid-sentence. “Hey, slow down now. The secret’s out. You saw me have a meltdown. I told you what was going on inside my head, and I swear now, everything is perfect. Just…fucking…perfect.” As he picked up the pen to make some necessary corrections to a couple of Matt’s guitar solo parts, then his own, he came to a realization; he was such a goddamn liar. Things weren’t perfect, they were far from it. Josh was one gigantic knot of anxiety that he just couldn’t figure out how to untangle.
By early Monday morning, Josh was on the phone with the secretary from 604 Records making an appointment to meet with Jonathan Simkin on Friday afternoon. Even though he still had virtually nothing recorded and he wasn’t even one-hundred percent sold on the idea that his lyrics and score sheets were what he wanted, Josh knew that he couldn’t back out or slack off again if he locked himself into the promise of a meeting, so he secured a time slot with the man himself at three p.m., giving Josh only four and a half more days to complete the entirety of the two new songs the band now had.
With Matt, Ian, and Mike all able to work only half days after explaining to their respective bosses what was going on, Josh was finally able to sleep for several hours at a time each day until he met with each of the men at Little Mountain in the afternoons. He recorded bass with Mike, drums with Ian, and piano and guitar with Matt before filling in his own vocal and instrumental parts. Eventually the group’s background vocals were added to the song that they had entitled “September”. He didn’t feel like it was the best thing he’d ever written, but it certainly wasn’t the worst, and he had high hopes that it would work well enough once it was completely finished.
The second song the band recorded together was something that Josh had accidentally written in the throes of insomnia. It was yet another night that he couldn’t sleep due to stress, ideas for songs that wouldn’t stop swirling around in his mind, worries about the band, and random nonsensical things such as wondering if penguins had knees and what the true lyrics to the famous song “Louie Louie” were. Giving up and crawling out of bed somewhere around midnight, he had made the decision to head back to his father’s recording studio alone to work on finishing up his lead vocals for “September”. He was right in the middle of belting out the words “…September falls away ‘til I’m broken…,” when a random line of completely unrelated lyrics passed through his mind causing him to forget his place in the song.
Josh stopped the recording to write down the string of words that had hit him like a ton of bricks. He’d never had that happen in the middle of a song before, but strangely enough, it continued to occur until he had written an entire page of absurd text. Eventually, when he re-read everything he’d drafted, it all seemed to fit together and it was somehow turned into one of the quickest things he’d ever written. With any luck at all, though, Simkin would eat up “Decided to Break It”.
At exactly two twenty-seven p.m. on Friday afternoon, all four members of Marianas Trench filed into the lobby of 604 Records wearing their best jeans, sneakers, tshirts and blazers. Josh thought it was best that they dressed up just a little for a meeting of that caliber. The singer walked up to the receptionist and smiled widely. “Hi, I’m…”
“…here to see Jonathan,” she finished, smiling in return when he nodded. “Good for you, honey. I knew you had it in you. I’ve been working in this business for twenty years and I can always tell who’s gonna make it and who won’t.” Josh usually hated when people gave him nicknames he didn’t ask for, but she reminded him too much of his own mother to ever correct her. Besides, she’d been extraordinarily nice to him when she didn’t have to be, so “honey” he stayed.
“And you really think that we’re one of the lucky ones?” he asked, laying his hands on the desk and smiling a little wider.
The receptionist reached out and patted his arm. “No. Not lucky, determined. Just don’t you dare give up on your dreams. I’ll go tell Jonathan that you’re here.”
Josh turned back to his bandmates and followed them over to the row of seats that he’d gotten to know so well. “And now we wait.” He touched his pocket for the ninth time since he had left his apartment just to make sure the CD of new songs they had just finished recording and editing as of eleven fifty-eight that morning was still there. Josh wasn’t a procrastinator, but a perfectionist as Matt had accused him of being days prior, and that almost always lead to finishing every project at the very last possible moment. In the end, though, everything Josh had a hand in was usually golden in the band’s eyes, so no one could complain too much about his work habits.
Nervously, the boys all sat studying the floor and the walls while they hoped they weren’t sweating through the deodorant that they had each put on less than half an hour earlier. It was the first time Mike, Ian and Matt had laid eyes on the inside of the 604 Records building, and they had more new things to study than Josh did to keep their minds occupied. Josh had memorized every square inch of the lobby of that building within the first week he planted himself in a chair and refused to move while he sat in silence, waiting to be noticed.
“Dude, what time is it?” the singer asked, turning to the bass player.
Mike raised his arm and looked down at his wrist. “It’s only two forty-five.” He then folded his arms, carefully covering his watch so he wouldn’t look at it a thousand more times.
“Fuck,” Josh exhaled quietly, tapping his hand on his leg. “I don’t think I’m gonna make it.”
“Stop being so damn dramatic,” Ian ordered, leaning back in his chair and crossing his ankle over the opposite knee. “Chill. You’re gonna drive us all batshit insane.”
“How the hell can you be so calm?” Josh tensely tugged on his bangs, first shoving them out of his eyes, then dragging them back down across his face.
“Look, I’m just as worked up as you are, Ramsay, but if I don’t find a way to relax, my fucking head is gonna explode. Now, calm the fuck down before I have to kill you,” the drummer said, taking a deep breath.
“Can anyone else hear my heart pounding?” Matt put a hand inside his jacket against the center of his chest.
“Yeah, now cut it out,” Mike shot at the guitarist, warning him against getting a little too weird in public, as he was apt to do.
The guitar player slid down in his seat melodramatically and rested his head on the bassist’s shoulder. “Heart…stopping. It’s the end. I’m coming, great-granny! I see the white light!”
Josh shifted forward in his chair and leaned over to hiss at the younger man and tell him to cut the shit. “Matt, you fuckin’…-“
“So, you actually fuckin’ listened and made an appointment after the fifth time I told you to do it?” Simkin asked, cutting off the singer’s words, as he rounded the reception desk and came into view of the men.
Josh stood quickly, the rest of the band following suit like an inverted game of dominoes. This time, he reached forward and professionally greeted Simkin with a handshake. Nodding, Josh said, “For you, for this, I do what I’m told…eventually,” and smiled.
Simkin smirked and retracted his arm, very briskly shaking hands with each of the other three band members in turn. “I don’t have a whole lot of time for this, so let’s fuckin’ get to it.” He pointed at Ian, Mike and Matt. “You’re the rest of Marianas Trench?” he asked, turning and leading the men down the hallway to his office, not bothering to wait for an answer.
For the very first time since he’d first stepped foot inside the building, Josh noticed the signed photos and gold record plaques that lined the walls of the hallway. How did he not see those before? They must have all been musicians that existed under the management of 604 Records. Mike twisted his body and poked Josh in the ribs, subtly pointing at a photo of the band Nickelback, the frontman of whom had co-founded the label with Simkin. Josh nodded, but narrowed his eyes at the bass player. He was still trying to play things cool in front of the higher-ups, and moves like that would ruin his credibility, making him seem even younger than he was. Luckily, Mike took the hint and kept quiet as the band was directed into Simkin’s office single-file.
“Um…yeah,” Josh finally answered with the intention of introducing everyone once they were inside the office with the door shut. “This is the rest of the band. Mike Ayley,” he gestured to the bass player at his right, “Ian Casselman,” he said pointing to the drummer at his far left, “and Matt Webb,” he concluded, putting his right hand on the guitar player’s shoulder directly next to him.
“What?” Simkin asked, seeming to have forgotten that he asked. “Oh, yeah. The band. Good. So, you promised me new shit “by the end of the week.” It’s now three p.m. on Friday.” The older man sat and pointed a finger at the calendar on the wall. “What do you have to show me?”
“We have this.” The singer reached into his pocket and pulled out another plastic square case containing the second demo CD with the new songs.
Simkin took the case from Josh and turned it over in his hands. “And this is better?”
Josh looked from one member of his band to the other, getting encouraging nods from each one before responding. “Yeah, it is.”
“You’re not just wasting my time, right?” Pulling the disc from the case and sliding the CD into the tray of his stereo, Simkin poised a finger above the ‘play’ button and waited for an answer this time.
“Fuck, no,” the singer said with an indignant tone. “We’re really fuckin’ serious about this. Just listen. You’ll see.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Josh could see Mike and Matt both cross their fingers against their hips and slide their hands into their pockets. Real mature, you dicks, he thought, hoping that Simkin didn’t see the motion.
Rather than listening to the first song on the disc as he had previously done, Simkin skipped “September” in favour of the second track. “All the concrete words around here…,” sang Josh’s recorded voice. Simkin shut his eyes and steepled his fingers together in front of him, his elbows resting on the arms of his chair as all four members of the band stood in front of him, waiting for a response.
The song ended and Simkin stood, walking out of the room without a word. Josh turned to the other three men and stared at them through wide eyes. “What the fuck just happened??”
“We were gonna ask you the same damn thing. Did he do that to you before?” Ian asked, more than just a little curious.
“No! I don’t know what the hell that was about!” Josh answered in a loud and panicked whisper.
“Jesus…,” Matt sighed, stepping back against the wall behind him. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
Simkin quickly ducked back into the room and grabbed the CD out of the player, all without looking at any of the men, who were now sweating bullets. “I don’t love it,” he said curtly before swooping back out again.
Josh moved around Matt and sunk down into the leather chair he’d been told to sit in the week before. He dropped his head and folded his fingers together in front of him, staring down at the floor. Depression had instantly set in, sudden thoughts of suicide, raking a razor blade across his body, getting drunk and getting as high on any drug he could get his hands on all rolled through his mind at warp speed. He did his best to shove those as deep down as he could, but had very little motivation to keep them from resurfacing.
Once those thoughts came, Josh knew he was done for. “Man, what happened? You did a great job with those songs. We did a great job.” Mike said, thinking out loud. Josh just shook his head, unable to answer. He had no idea what was going on and it scared him shitless.
“Maybe we need something…even better?” Ian tentatively asked.
“Better how? Josh busted his ass on this shit. But…maybe you’re right. Maybe it just isn’t what Simkin is looking for. If we wanna do well, we really need to kill this,” Matt stated, turning to face Josh, who still hadn’t been able to look up at his friends. He felt like he’d failed them all and ruined every chance they ever would have had at breaking into the business.
“What you want? What you need? It’s been killing me,” Josh spoke quietly with shaking, rage-filled words, “trying to be everything that you need me to be. Why is it not enough? Why is it never fucking enough? I wrote this shit almost single-handedly. I produced it by myself. I gave up sleep, I gave up food, I gave up my fucking life for this, because…you know what? I want this just as much as you do. But I just can’t be everything to everybody all the damn time. What the fuck else does everyone want from me?” The singer stood and crossed his arms, stepping back against Simkin’s desk and staring at the only blank space on the wall between the guitar player and the drummer.
“Man, we didn’t…-,” Matt started, reaching a hand out toward Josh’s shoulder, but immediately dropping his arm to his side when Simkin walked back into the room.
“Am I…interrupting something?” the older man asked, crowding his way past the band in the small office and sitting back down behind his desk. “Am I about to witness a fucking break-up before you ever get started?”
“No,” Josh answered flatly, with a hint of anger still in his voice. “It’s fine. We’re fine.” He squeezed his eyes shut and took a quick deep breath before turning on his heel to face Simkin.
“Well, then if you boys are fucking done with your little hissy-fit here, let’s talk for real now. I showed this demo to the bosses I have to answer to. I might not love it, but they thought it was decent enough. They think they can make something outta you guys. But, you have to try again. They said that this is good, but not fuckin’ good enough. So, you need more songs. Give us three or four more next time. They wanna hear really powerful shit and one pop song. You have two weeks.” Simkin set the newest demo CD down on the desk and Josh stared blankly at it. If he had this much trouble coping with everything so far, how the fuck was he ever going handle more?
“Well?” Simkin waved a hand through Josh’s vision, snapping him out of his thoughts. “Are you willing to strip away all this little kid bullshit and really bare your soul so you can make it in the music business and start earning the big bucks, or are we done here? I don’t give a shit either way. It’s not my life.”
Josh dreaded having to write even more openly than he already did. He didn’t want to; he didn’t want to be forced into it, either. Writing like that…it made him feel too naked and too vulnerable. Instead of telling Simkin to shove his suggestion so far up his ass that he could taste it, Josh felt himself nodding without even as much as a single glance at the rest of the band. “I’ll say…yes. I’ll do it. I’ll undress. Fuck, dude, I’ve done more for less,” he said trying to joke his way out of a serious memory consisting of the things he’d sometimes done in his younger days to degrade himself in order to get the drugs he so desperately used to need. He’d done it before, and now he was reluctant, but willing to try ripping himself apart to do it again. At least this time it would be worth it and he’d have something to show for it.
Simkin stuck out his arm once again to shake hands with Josh. “So, that’s a go? You’d be okay with doing this?” he asked, clasping Josh’s fingers.
“Yeah, I would. I would change everything ‘til it’s perfect…again.” Josh inwardly sighed and cringed at himself, hating absolutely everything about what he was hearing himself say. He didn’t have much of a choice. He had to write what they wanted to hear if he wanted even the smallest of chances of the band getting signed. Just this once, he promised himself. If the band got to produce a first album, he would write what the label wanted to hear. If they were lucky enough to have a second album, he’d make damn sure that he only wrote what he was comfortable with, no more, no less. He rolled his eyes at himself, but ignored the nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach that kept making him think of the suited man he saw on the street whom he had called a “sell-out” several days prior. Now he was nearly just as bad.
Simkin penciled the band in for another appointment exactly two weeks from the current day and Josh’s heart sank a little when he could see on the calendar exactly how little time that really gave him to write three or four more songs – three or four better songs. Shit, he’d better make it four if he really wanted to gain any respect. He couldn’t just put in the minimum effort. “Okay you guys, get lost. Next time I see you, you’d better fuckin’ have it right.”
The four men left the office quietly, each waving goodbye to the secretary, who continued to smile at them with a look that seemed to say she knew they’d be back. Out on the sidewalk, Josh fell back against the brick wall of the building and bent his knee, putting his foot flat against the wall, staring out into the street at the passing cars. “You guys…”
“We know, man, we know,” Mike said, leaning on his shoulder against the wall next to Josh. “But, we’ve got this. We can do this.”
“How can you always be so fucking positive all the damn time?” The singer turned his head to face the bass player with a raised eyebrow. “Dude, be realistic. We might have another meeting with Simkin in a couple of weeks, but there’s still a really fucking good chance that he’ll tell us that we aren’t ever gonna make it in this business.”
Mike responded to Josh’s question with one of his own. “How can you not be positive? If we don’t think we’ll make it, we’re already shooting ourselves in the ass before we ever try. If we think we will, then we’ve at least got hope.” The bass player pushed himself off the wall and shrugged, turning toward the parking lot.
“Fucking walking Hallmark card,” Josh mumbled under his breath as he trailed behind the rest of the men to follow Matt back to his car.
Back at his apartment, both singer and guitar player, who Josh had commandeered before they ever left the parking lot of 604 Records, were bent over the table looking through Josh’s notebook of lyrics to try to pick out a few words or lines that might work for ideas for new songs that they now had only fourteen days to come up with. “Man, I don’t know,” Matt told him, sitting back in the mismatched kitchen chair and shaking his head. “All of this shit sounds good to me.”
“That doesn’t fucking help me, dude!” Josh stood quickly and paced across the kitchen where he stood with his hands against the edges of the sink, squinting through the window against the setting sun. He blinked twice and moved his gaze away from the slowly dulling rays that were bouncing off the roofs of cars. “I don’t know what the hell to do here. I keep staring at that goddamn book and I can’t see anything good in any of it anymore. It’s all just…shit.”
The brunet turned several pages ahead in the notebook as his eyes skimmed over rhymed lines, through crossed out words and across lyrics with question marks next to them. “You’re doing it again.”
“What am I doing again?” the singer questioned without turning around. He could hear the crinkling sound of pages being turned behind him.
“You’re being too hard on yourself,” Matt answered easily. “You don’t realize it, but you always do this. You freak the hell out before any kind of deadline and it’s all for nothing, because you always manage to pull amazing shit out of thin air at the last minute. You know this.”
“There’s more to lose this time, Matt. This is everything.”
More flipping pages nearly made Josh turn around, but he decided against it. He was just sick and tired of thinking about it all. “Simkin said he wanted you to be really honest, right?” Matt asked.
Josh nodded his head, eyes still fixated on a random point out in the parking lot that his kitchen window overlooked.
“Well…,” the brunet started slowly, “I know you’ve been writing about what you think and feel and all that stuff, but…what about writing about the shit you’ve been through? You know, rehab…what got you there, what happened after…?”
The singer ducked his head and took a deep breath. He’d done that before, but only for himself. Never for anyone else to see. This time, he slowly turned to face Matt, standing back against the sink and crossing his arms. “Dude, I…I don’t fuckin’ know about that. I’m already writing as much about that as I can right now.” Josh wasn’t so sure he wanted to admit to Matt that he didn’t think he’d be able to pull any more out of himself without having a complete breakdown over it. Everything in his past was still too close to his present, but if he was ever going to be truthful, now was the time to do it. Instead, what slipped from his lips was frustration instead of honesty. “I’m doing the best I can. I mean, what the fuck does it look like I’m writing about? Shopping at the mall? C’mon, dude, I can write better than that without having to put that much of myself into it.”
“I’m sorry! It was just a suggestion.” The guitar player closed the notebook and shoved it back across the table in front of Josh’s seat. “I’m trying to help. I just don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Matt,” Josh said dropping his arms to his sides and bracing his hands on the counter against his hips, “I don’t write simple fluffy shit. You, of all people, should know that. I’m the same guy who wrote the words “I’m shallow, I’m miserable, and I’m waiting here until it feels okay again”. How the fuck can I be more honest than that?”
Matt stood so he was facing Josh and leaned back against the wall, tucking his hands into his hip pockets. “Let me ask you something, just…without an argument, okay?” Josh nodded and waited for him to continue speaking. “Yeah, it’s honest, and that’s good. It’s how you felt. But…don’t you think that sounds a little…young? I mean, it’s fine for the shit we play now, but you’ve grown up a lot since you wrote that. You came up with those lyrics when you were, what, seventeen? You’ve got so much more shit behind you these days. Simkin was right when he said that stuff sounded like “an angst-y teenager” wrote it. He nailed it. We need to sound…older.”
“Fuck you, Matt. And fuck him, too.” Josh ran a hand through his hair and lightly kicked the cabinet behind him with the heel of his sneaker. “But you’re both fucking right. I guess I’m just too close to this stuff. Help me! Find something in that damn book that works.” The taller man pointed over to the notebook that Matt had just closed and prayed to any deity that was listening that Matt wouldn’t get fed up with his whining and leave him to fend for himself. He didn’t expect it would happen, but anything was a possibility.
Matt pulled his hands from his pockets and sat again, seeming to be okay with taking the direct order from his friend. Starting at the back where the more recent lyrics were, Josh watched as the guitar player once again ran his finger down the words and turned page after page, taking so long that the singer wanted to strangle the younger man. “Well??” he asked Matt impatiently.
“Relax, I’m looking,” the brunet mumbled, flipping one page over, then another. “Okay, here,” he said, stopping at a stanza with thick black pen lines through it. “What about this?” Matt held the notebook out to Josh, who took it and studied the words he’d written just several days ago sometime between midnight and five in the morning.
“This? Seriously? Jesus Christ, Matt, this is way too fucking personal. I can’t put that out there. I won’t. I only wrote it to get it out of my head and I don’t wanna be singing about this for the rest of my goddamn life.” He shook his head and dropped the notebook back onto the table before heading to the refrigerator and taking out two bottles of soda. He offered one to Matt and sank back down onto his chair. “I don’t want anyone to know that much about me.”
Matt pushed his chair back from the table just enough to cross his ankle over the opposite knee and unscrewed the plastic bottle, taking several swallows before setting it down on the table. “Don’t you think people are gonna find out about your past anyway? Someday you’re gonna open your mouth and let that slip. I know you. And don’t you think it’s just a little fucking egotistical to be thinking that you’re “too good” to stoop to writing about what you’ve been through? If that’s what we need to do to get this stuff done, then why don’t we just…do it? You have to start coming down from that and get over that shit, man. Give it up.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Josh insisted, raising his soda bottle up to his mouth and taking a drink. “You aren’t the one who went through it. You aren’t gonna be judged for this stuff. I spent a lifetime…nevermind. Forget it.”
“Josh,” the guitarist said, slanting his body forward and looking his friend in the eyes, “I know. You don’t have to tell me. I was right fucking there with you. I get it. But look at your favourite bands. You’ve always said that you admire the ones that write boldly, the ones who don’t hold back, the ones that just go for it. Kids look up to that, they relate. They don’t judge.”
It took ten more minutes of convincing before Josh finally leaned back over his notebook and sighed, staring at lines of crossed out words and feeling his heart sink down into his stomach at the idea of opening himself up to the world like he was about to do. “Alright, alright. I’m coming around. I’ll give it a try,” he agreed. “But dude, you better be right. This better work.”
Shrugging, the brunet only reached out to pick up a pen and doodle something random on the sheet of crumpled up paper in front of him. “It’s what Simkin wants,” he said simply.
Two weeks later at one forty-three p.m., the boys of Marianas Trench stood around Simkin’s desk as he slid the disc containing the third round of new songs into his CD player. “This is it. You better be fuckin’ killing it this time.” He pressed the ‘play’ button and sat back in his chair to listen.
Josh glanced at each of the other three men out of the corner of his eye, and they collectively held their breath until the first notes of the first song were played. Luckily enough, Simkin seemed to like the three more emotional songs that Josh was able to produce, even though it shredded his soul while he wrote them.
To get through writing those songs alone, Josh had to kidnap a friend with a car and disappear for a weekend just to get out of his head in order to be able to continue writing when he got back home. He used it as an excuse to get together with everyone he’d been putting off for the previous four months, though he still hadn’t told them what he’d been busy doing. He just wanted to forget about everything for forty-eight hours and pretend like he had no responsibilities waiting for him back home, and it helped. He couldn’t claim that he didn’t do anything stupid, but at least it was nothing like the old days.
The fourth song on the final demo was less mentally and emotionally jarring, but it was the most lyrically difficult to write for the singer. It was the pop song that Simkin had requested. Josh had given up trying to write the typical pop shit that the radio stations all seemed to play these days, and had finally agreed, through the insistence of the rest of the band, to write something “stompy” with a quick, upbeat tempo that people could sing along with and dance to when it played. “And it will play on the radio,” Mike had maintained, sounding like he honestly believed it. So, Josh caved in and came up with something he was fairly proud of, starting a stanza with a couple of words that Simkin had said to him during the first meeting, “Try a little more, little more, little more, they slap you like a bitch and you take it like a whore”.
Josh frowned when he heard the sound of his most ridiculous song yet filling the room. “Well, you really fuckin’ knocked it out of the park this time, guys. This “Shake Tramp” shit…I think it’s the best thing you’ve shown me yet.” Simkin popped the disc out of the CD player and stuck it back in the case as he smiled at the men for the first time since he’d met them. “You’re really gonna hit the ground running with this one if we sign you.”
That wasn’t what the singer wanted. That wasn’t the song that he hoped would mean something to anyone. He’d written three other authentic, somewhat painful songs that he thought would get more recognition than they did this time around, but it seemed like the stuff everyone else wanted for now were the songs he chose to be an asshole about writing. Josh managed a weak smile in return and slid his hands into his back pockets. “Thanks.”
On the surface, Josh knew that the song sounded, well, a little offensive, but in reality, that was so far from the truth. He knew what it was really about. In the grand scheme of things, he felt like he was figuratively being “slapped” by the record label and forced to “take it like a whore” because they had the upper hand in this matter and he had to grin like an idiot and go along with it because they were the ones paying him for his service. Josh was selling his product - selling himself - to the people who controlled his future. That song was one of his little secrets that he didn’t care to share with anyone outside the band.
Rather than something he wrote from the heart, it was, more or less to Josh, a giant ‘fuck you’ directed at the higher-ups at the record label who were already pissing him off before he was ever signed, although it was still allowing him to be truthful about how he was feeling in the moment. Superficially, the song was catchy, but if anyone ever took the time to analyze it, they’d see that there was much more to it than he’d ever be willing to let on. Still, he had to do what he had to do, and if this was what it took, Josh was going to be as sarcastic and clever as he could possibly get away with being to get the job done. If the managers of 604 Records were going to insist that he bend over and take it up the ass for them, even just this once, then he was damn sure going to make it fucking worth his while.
“Okay, I’m gonna go show this to the suits further up the food chain around here than I am, so relax and I’ll be back.” Simkin picked up the CD case from his desk and left the room, closing the band inside.
Josh saw Ian turn to Matt and grin wider than he’d ever seen the man smile before. “Man, this is unbelievable. Fucking unbelievable. I can’t believe we’re even standing here, let alone talking about the possibility of getting signed to an actual record label. This is some insane shit…” He stepped around Josh to sit on the edge of Simkin’s desk.
Mike seemed so happy that he didn’t know what to do with himself. Until Josh turned to face him, that is. “Now it’s you that doesn’t look so thrilled, man. This is what we all wanted, isn’t it? We worked really hard for this.”
Josh frowned again and clicked the metal stud through his tongue against his teeth while he thought about how he wanted to respond to the bass player. “It…yeah. It’s what we wanted. It’s what we worked for,” he finally said, nodding.
“Then what’s up, Josh?” Matt finally asked. Josh felt like he was facing a firing squad and his answers could not only end his own life, but everyone else’s too. He knew the band wouldn’t make it without him. That wasn’t egotistical bragging, just a fact. He put the band together, he wrote the songs, he produced the music, he was the lead singer. If he walked away, they’d all have to walk away. He knew that, but it didn’t stop him from answering Matt’s question.
“Fuck, you guys…did you ever stop to realize that Simkin, this whole record deal shit…is crazy? They’re asking me to write things I don’t wanna write. Why would I wanna sign with them?” For the first time in a long time, Josh just couldn’t force the words he was feeling into anything that resembled what he truly wanted to say. He sighed heavily and tried again, coming up with an example that he hoped might somehow get everyone to realize what he was fighting his conscience about. “Okay, Matt, let’s say you wanted to be a photographer, right?”
Matt nodded and shifted his stance to cross his legs at the ankles while he braced himself back against Simkin’s desk. “Right…”
“And the only way you’d get a job is to take nothing but nude photos of yourself, even though, hypothetically, you were horribly fucking embarrassed about your body. But, for some reason you had three other people depending on you to take that job.” Josh stopped talking and the brunet nodded again, tucking his hands into his pockets while he listened. “You’d literally be putting yourself and your entire fucking life out there for the world to see, scars, insecurities, flaws…everything. But, the fucking boss doesn’t want you to take pictures mountains or other people, he wants you to embarrass the shit out of yourself and it’s the only way you’ll all make money. Do you do it?”
The singer watched as Matt squirmed a little where he stood under Josh’s stare and dropped his eyes to a spot on the floor between his own shoes and Josh’s. “Matt,” he asked again pointedly, “do you fucking do it?”
Matt lifted his eyes to meet the singer’s and Josh wanted nothing more than to break that contact, but he held onto it while he waited for the answer. “I dunno, Josh. I don’t know how to answer that. I’d like to think that I’d be willing to do it if my whole career depended on it, if it was something I’d wanted for my entire life. Shit, I know what you’re saying, but it’s different here.”
“How? How is it different?” Josh demanded.
“It just is. You’re not…,” Matt cut himself off and shook his head before starting over. “You’re not doing this alone. And you’re not putting your body out there for the world to see. You’re using your words. That’s entirely different, man. Completely.”
“You still don’t fucking get it, do you?” Josh stepped behind the soft brown leather chair to his right and laid his hands on the top while he tried, yet again, to come up with another way to explain. “My head is a fucked up place, dude. I don’t know that I want the world seeing that. I don’t even wanna see that. I don’t know if I can do what they’re asking me to do.”
“Josh?” The sound of his name coming from Mike’s mouth made him stand straighter and turn his head.
“Yeah?” he asked quietly, feeling somewhat defeated, confused and unsure.
“We all know how hard you’ve been working, man. We really do. And we know how hard this shit has been on you.” Josh’s eyes followed as Mike rested a hand against his shoulder. “We’ve been there, we’ve seen it. I guess…,” the bass player trailed off, seeming to look to the other two men before settling his eyes back on the singer, “as much as we want this record deal to happen, we all kind of agreed that we wouldn’t do it if it meant risking you. And right now, we’re worried about you. Are you doing okay?”
It was the first time he’d been asked that in a very long time, and Josh didn’t know how to reply. Physically, he was thinner and lankier than he had been several months ago. At first, the slight weight loss had just been because he’d gotten a little depressed about losing his job and hunger hadn’t presented itself. Then it was because he just didn’t care about doing much besides sleeping whenever he could, sitting out on his fire escape in the middle of the night and smoking cigarette after cigarette, or walking to the record label building almost daily. Those things seemed more important than filling his stomach with food that he didn’t even feel like eating. Eventually his excuse was that he was just too busy. This wasn’t like last time. It wasn’t like it was in his past. He and food had always had a love-hate relationship at best, but at the moment, his avoidance now truly was just because he had other things on his mind. But physically he was okay. Mostly.
Mentally, that’s where the answer became grey and fuzzy and things got so much harder. Josh flickered his eyes up to Mike’s, then dropped them again to trace a finger along the rounded piping across the top of the chair. How could he explain that he’d had to rip out his fucking heart and tear it apart bit by bit until it was nearly unrecognizable, even to himself, while looking for the words he needed in order to write something that would make someone else happy? How could he tell these three men that, on one particularly bad night, he’d dropped to his knees in the middle of his bedroom, frantically gripping at his hair with both hands while he folded in on himself, gasping for breath and shaking like the addict he used to be? Where were the words to describe the panic and anxiety that shot through his body causing his heart to stutter in his chest and making Josh wonder if it was going to give out? What answers could he give them that would do justice to the thoughts that continually chased one another through his head, leaving him with feelings of shame, guilt and embarrassment over his past and now his future, if he wasn’t able to get over this idea of writing so candidly about himself? How could Josh ever put those things into coherent thoughts?
“I’m fine,” the singer heard himself say after several moments. Funny, the bassist looked skeptical, but Josh wasn’t about to repeat himself or further explain. He just couldn’t even begin to try. It was easier to pretend. Besides, he was fine…for the moment.
Mike slowly removed his hand and rested his arm at his side. “Are you sure?”
“Dude, I said I’m alright. Drop it,” Josh said quietly but stiffly. He squeezed the back of the leather chair tightly in his hands before releasing it and taking a deep breath.
The rattle of the door handle interrupted their conversation and Simkin walked back into the room empty-handed. “Well, guys, the sharks at the top liked your new stuff. They think you’ve got what it takes to be under 604 management and I think they’re willing to draw up a contract if you’re willing to work your asses off to earn it.”
Ian, Matt and Mike grinned broadly at one another, trying to contain any excess excitement that would make them seem too eager. Josh, on the other hand, barely lifted the corners of his mouth. He should be happier about this. Why wasn’t he happier about this? He’d already spent a decade working toward what was finally being handed to him. Why did he feel like he wanted to jump off the fucking roof instead? His eyes were still focused on a slightly discoloured spot on the carpet between the chair he stood behind and Simkin’s desk when he heard Matt speak up. “That’s…that’s amazing. That’s so great, thank you! We really appreciate this more than you know. But, can we have a few days to talk about everything? You know, as a band?”
Josh’s head snapped up. What the fuck was he hearing? No, no, no. No, Matt! You don’t fucking say that shit! He opened his mouth to speak when Simkin answered first. “Yeah, sure. It’s gonna take a few days for them to make up their minds about the contract shit and what they want from you guys, so we’ll get in touch as soon as we can. We have your information. I think you boys are gonna do fuckin’ great here and you’ll fit in well with the 604 family if we sign you. So, discuss what you need to and we’ll go over it all when we get you back in here again to hopefully make it all official. Deal?”
Matt smiled and held his hand out to shake Simkin’s once again. Mike and Ian did the same before Josh limply held out his own hand to the older man. Simkin pulled the singer in a little closer and quietly spoke a few words that Josh wasn’t sure he wanted to hear. “We know we asked a lot of you with this shit, but you did it. Expect that you’ll be asked to do more of that in the future. I’m sure you can handle it.” Josh only nodded and thanked Simkin again before pulling his hand out of the shorter man’s grasp.
“Okay, now get outta here, you guys. Enjoy your weekend. Get stupid, but not too stupid. We don’t wanna lose you before we ever get you.” Simkin laughed, coaxing polite chuckles from everyone but the lead singer. “I’ll be in touch.” The band was ushered out into the hallway and the door was shut behind them.
Josh jammed his hands into his jacket pockets and walked on auto-pilot back down the hallway without even glancing up at the secretary that he had grown so fond of. He knew she’d want to talk or at least congratulate him for making it back to Simkin’s office for a third meeting, but he couldn’t stomach any of that. Not now. He had too much thinking to do. The singer didn’t even want to discuss any of it with his bandmates, even though those were the three people he truly did need to talk to. He’d have to sooner or later, but why couldn’t it be later?
The four men had arrived at the 604 Records label building in their own vehicles this time, not wanting to risk anything and knowing that Josh had a habit of almost always being approximately half an hour late to everything. It had become a running joke among them over the past few years, but the singer used it to his advantage today. He angled himself into the car he’d borrowed from his parents for the day so he wouldn’t show up looking like he’d just run a marathon for the third time in a row. Without even turning to look back at the other three, who all stood up against Ian’s beaten up vintage hunk of junk excuse for a mode of transportation, Josh stuck the key into the ignition and had every intention of going straight home. He could feel their eyes on him as he cranked up the stereo and pulled out of the parking lot, mentally crossing his fingers that he would make it home without getting stuck in the rush hour traffic.
He glanced up into the rear view mirror once at a stop light several blocks away, only to see Matt staring back at him from his own car. “Fuck,” Josh said aloud to himself. The brunet just wasn’t going to let anything go. Of the three other men, Matt was the one who had known Josh the longest. They weren’t exactly best friends, but more like brothers. They knew each other inside out, and ever since they were teenage boys when Matt had been there to see Josh go through some intense, trying times, he’d always been the one to check up on the singer, making sure he was okay, making sure that there was no chance he’d fall back into old habits. While Josh had always inwardly appreciated the effort, he outwardly resented the fact that he was never left alone. “Now just isn’t the fucking time, Matt,” he protested before turning his attention back to the radio that was playing a song that he wished he’d written.
Pulling into the parking lot of his apartment complex, Josh shut off the car and pocketed the keys. Seconds later, Matt’s car pulled up beside him and the guitar player stepped out, shutting the door, lounging back against it and sticking his hands into the pockets of his jacket, apparently waiting for the singer to make a similar move. Not for the first time in his life, but for certainly the most recent, Josh wished he could just close his eyes and become invisible. If he couldn’t see the world, the world couldn’t see him. He’d be left alone with his thoughts, even though that wasn’t always such a good thing. Just for good measure, he leaned his head back against the headrest and shut his eyes until a light tapping on the passenger window made him jump and grit his teeth.
“Fuck, Matt,” he growled, pushing open his own door and stepping out. He stared at the younger man across the hood of the car as he slammed the door shut. “What?” he asked irritably.
“Bullshit,” the brunet accused calmly, placing his hands on the opposite side of the roof of the grey sedan.
“Bullshit what?” Josh knew. He knew without the shadow of a doubt what Matt was talking about, but he still didn’t want to talk about it, and he felt that if he played stupid long enough, maybe Matt would just give it up and go home. He also knew better than to think that would actually happen, but he was willing enough to give it a try.
“What you said back there at 604. You’re not fucking fine. I know that tone and I know those words. That’s what you always use when you’re too stuck inside your own head.” The guitarist slowly retracted his hands and stepped around the front of the car to take away any buffer they had between them. At the moment, Matt was really pushing Josh out of his comfort zone and invading his personal space, but if Josh wanted to keep up the illusion that he was okay, he’d have to fake it. Again. He’d gotten a little too good at that over the years.
The Vancouver skies were once again typically unfriendly, and a fine mist had started to fall before the band had walked out of Simkin’s office. By the time Josh left the dryness of the vehicle, the mist had turned to freezing rain, making Matt all the more crazy for standing out in it while he waited for Josh. It made both of them look completely senseless for having this discussion while the heavy drops of cold water pelted them, running down their faces, clinging to their eyelashes and dripping from their noses. “What do you want me to tell you, dude?” Josh finally asked loudly, flinging his arms out from his sides, knowing that the longer they stood in the parking lot, the more attention from his neighbours that they would most likely attract.
“I wanna know what’s up your ass, man. What the hell is wrong with you?” Matt took another step closer, causing Josh to take a step backward in order to keep his preferred distance.
“I keep telling you! You’re not fucking listening! I can’t do this.” The taller man shoved his hair back from his eyes, using the rain to slick it back.
“Can’t or won’t?” Matt questioned, all without raising his voice. The calmness of the guitar player annoyed the shit out of Josh, and that only made him feel even more out of control.
“Both. Fuck it, dude, I don’t want the world to know what we’re talking about. Get inside.” Josh gestured to the front door of his apartment as he quickly walked toward it and unlocked it, rolling his eyes and shaking his head behind Matt as the younger man walked in and up the stairs ahead of him.
Matt shrugged off his jacket and dropped it across the back of one of the kitchen chairs as Josh watched him make his way into the living room and sit down on the couch, obviously settling in for a long conversation that Josh still did not want to have. The singer pulled off his own jacket and laid it across the second chair, then turned around and pulled two bottles of soda from the refrigerator, uncapping one and swallowing before bringing the second out to Matt. He handed it to the brunet and sat in the old reclining chair, allowing him to face his current problem head on, both literally and figuratively.
Josh could see the muscles in Matt’s jaw working as he obviously tried to keep his temper in check. Matt was such a laid back person in nearly every situation, but now that his own future was on the line, Josh could understand why he was so irritated. “Matt,” the singer said, leaning forward and putting his elbows on his knees, gripping the re-capped soda bottle in both hands.
“I wanna understand this, Josh. I wanna know what the fuck is wrong with you.”
“I know, and I’m trying to tell you. Hear me out.” The guitar player nodded and waited for Josh to speak. “How can I possibly make you understand that I don’t want the world pitying me? I don’t fucking want anyone to buy our shit because they think I had a terrible childhood or something. I was my problem. I fucking did all of that shit to myself back then. I wanna get this record deal based on our music, and I don’t wanna turn my life into some cheap, easy way to make money.” Josh wasn’t quite saying what he wanted to say, but he still didn’t know how to find exactly the right words to explain what was in his head.
“They won’t, man. It’ll be fine. You’ve gotta drop that paranoid shit.” The brunet crossed his ankle over the opposite knee and rested his still-full soda bottle on the arm of the couch. “We’re good. You fucking know that. We’re about to get signed based on our music, not your past. No one knows about that but the band anyway. And the music is what people are gonna hear before they ever know our names, let alone anything about who we are. You’ve gotta believe that. You know you’ve gotta put yourself out there to make it anywhere in this business. You have to stay with it.” Matt was persistent and Josh had to hand it to him, but it still didn’t change anything.
The singer set his soda bottle on the table beside the chair and stood, pacing across the room in front of the guitar player. “I know, I know…I’m well-fucking-aware of that.” He sniffed and sighed loudly, shoving a hand through his hair again in frustration. “I’m not saying this right at all. Dude, forget it. It’s fine. I’ll do it. It’s what everyone wants.”
“No!” Matt surprised Josh by pushing himself to his feet and standing toe-to-toe with the older man. “Don’t you dare play that fucking martyr card. If we do this, we’re in it together. Don’t play like you’re okay with this. Talk to me. If you wanna do this, then we do it. If you’re really that against it, we’ll find another way. We do this as a group; it’s not us against you. It never has been.”
Josh stepped backward until he hit the wall. He’d cornered himself and he was suddenly feeling trapped in more ways than he could ever express. He was tired of running, tired of arguing, tired of trying to convince everybody that he was somebody, that he was better than who he used to be. He’d spent so many years trying to get to this point, and what was he doing? Battling it every step of the way. Why? “Matt, dude, I don’t give a fuck anymore. I just don’t. I want this, you know I do.” It took everything he had, but he somehow forced himself to keep eye contact with the brunet.
Josh knew that Matt didn’t quite believe what he was being told, but Josh was being completely honest. He had been worn down and any real fight he had left was gone. He was ready to do anything it took to get his band to where they wanted to be. “I’ll write whatever they want, this time. Dude, I hate the way that I say I should stay on the label’s good side when I know that I don’t give a fuck about it anyway, but…-,”
Matt cut him off and finished his sentence. “…you can’t keep being you.” He smirked and dropped back down onto the couch again, uncapping then lifting his soda bottle to his mouth.
“Yeah,” Josh agreed with a slight smile. “I guess I can’t keep being me. I can’t keep kicking and screaming about not wanting to do what I’m told.” In a matter of seconds, all of the instances where he’d ever been told to “pack his shit and get out” because he wouldn’t comply with the wishes of those who had more power over him than he cared to admit came back to him full force, once again. It had taken him far too long to realize that he wasn’t doing himself any favours by thinking he had to protect himself every time he refused to listen to someone else’s advice. Letting someone else tell him what to do was what had gotten him into trouble in the first place a handful of years ago, and he’d since put up a wall, no longer allowing people to get that far into his head again.
But now Josh had to do what was best for the band, and if that meant opening up old wounds and letting them bleed all over again, he’d somehow have to find a way to deal with that. It wasn’t what he would have chosen for himself, but the choice didn’t belong to him alone as much as it belonged to each of the four members of the band equally. It didn’t mean it wouldn’t be the hardest thing he’d had to do in years, and he wasn’t really certain he was ready. It also didn’t mean that he wouldn’t possibly wind up even worse off than he was now in the end.
“You’re sure about this?” Matt asked warily from his spot on the couch. “I mean, you’re absolutely fucking positive you’re okay with it?”
Josh nodded and tugged the front of his shirt down in a nervous gesture that he’d been making for as long as he could remember. “Yeah,” he hesitated. “I think so. No, I am. I fucking have to be.”
“So, now we sit and wait for Simkin’s call, right?” the brunet asked, finishing the last of the soda and screwing the cap back on.
The singer managed to push himself away from the wall and sit back down in his chair facing Matt. “I guess so. I should probably keep writing.”
“Man, like Mike said before, you’re always writing. That’s not gonna be any different.” The guitar player smiled faintly and thumped the empty soda bottle against his knee twice.
“I can’t fuckin’ argue that one, dude. It’s true. But, like we’ve been talking about, I have to write better. I have to write older. I know I have…,” Josh let his words drop as he reached over and picked up his soda bottle, once again holding it tightly in both hands. He stared at it intently, playing with the loose paper label.
“You have to what?” Matt pressed.
Josh shook his head and continued to peel the label off the bottle, crumpling it in one hand and laying it on the table beside him. “Nothing.”
“No, c’mon. What? Don’t get all weird on me now, Ramsay.” The guitar player stood and walked through the living room, continuing into the kitchen and Josh heard the sound of the plastic bottle hitting the trash can. He knew that Matt was getting another drink from the refrigerator without ever looking up. It wasn’t until he sat back down, closer to the singer this time, that Josh spoke again.
“I know I have to get over this shit. But, you don’t realize how hard it is, Matt,” he said softly. ‘Quiet’ was not a word that was synonymous with Josh Ramsay’s name. If anything, he was always loud and boisterous, even during his darker times. When he hid himself away, spoke less, toned down his words…that’s when people knew things just weren’t as right with him as they should be. Josh, himself had, of course, known that all along, choosing to purposely differentiate his ‘off’ days from his more outgoing persona. He could and would fake being ‘fine’ if the situation called for it, but he never bothered to put in the extra effort to be his typical obnoxious self if he didn’t feel it. That’s the only thing that made his moods obvious to those who knew him.
He was aware that he had the younger man’s full attention now. Matt was sitting on the edge of the couch, his right knee nearly touching Josh’s left one. “Then tell me, man.” The guitar player stared down at his boots while the singer studied his own worn red Converse sneakers with the six black scuff marks across the left toe and three across the right.
“I’ve been fucking trying,” Josh said, lacing his fingers together around the soda bottle in front of him. “But, I’ll try again.” He took a deep breath and, for the fourth time, tried to get Matt to understand why everything was so difficult for him.
“Okay…what if…– no, tell me about the worst thing that’s ever happened to you in your entire life.” Josh finally raised his head to look at Matt as he set his soda down on the table beside him, abandoning the bottle again for the time being. He posed the request assuming that the story would somehow involve him. Lots of “worst” stories that belonged to people Josh was associated with in his teenage years started with, “Well, once when Josh and I were…” Bracing himself to hear similar words come out of Matt’s mouth, he sat back in his chair, draped an arm across his stomach and rested the other along his leg to try to appear more relaxed than he was. At the very least, Josh thought he’d have heard the story at least once in passing over the years since he and the younger man had known each other for so long that he didn’t think either of them had anything new left to tell one another.
The singer paid close attention to the guitar player as his brown eyes flickered from the still-cold soda in his hands down to the floor, then back up to meet Josh’s. The brunet couldn’t hold the gaze longer than several seconds before staring back down at his hands and shaking his head. “Man, I don’t know…”
“Do it, Matt,” Josh insisted in a low and demanding, but relatively composed voice. “Just fucking do it.”
It was obvious that Matt was hesitant and extremely conflicted. He’d never really said “no” to Josh before. Not where it counted, at any rate. Nothing more than simple disagreements were littered through their pasts. At least, nothing important enough that Josh could remember. The singer had a very persuasive way with words that would easily allow him to talk the younger man into anything if he wanted, but this time there would be none of that. Josh had asked that question for a reason and, as much as he wanted to manipulate Matt into telling him what was coming to mind, he wanted the younger man to tell the story on his own that much more. “Josh…this really sucks, man. C’mon, don’t make me do this.”
“Fucking do it, Matt. Just tell me! It can’t be that bad.” The singer raised his voice, a little louder and a little more angrily than he had originally intended, but he had a point that he wanted to make and, even though Matt was technically about to help him prove exactly what he wanted to say, he wanted to get there a hell of a lot more quickly than he was. “Open your fucking mouth and talk.” Josh sat up straighter, losing the more laid-back posture in favour of trying to intimidate the brunet just a little, not that he was a very imposing figure as it was.
“Fine!” Matt yelled back, standing and moving to position himself behind the couch. Now it seemed to be he that wanted the barrier and the space between them. Josh decided he’d give the younger man that much since he was the one forcing Matt to talk for, what must seem to the brunet, like no reason at all. “Fuck!” Matt raked both hands through his hair, then lowered them and squeezed the top of the couch tightly. “Fuck…,” he swore again, a little more softly. “Shit, Josh…”
“Is it about me?” the singer asked, trying his hardest to lighten his tone. Not only did Josh need to pull this story from Matt for his own sake, but now he was also curious to know if the reason Matt was having such a hard time telling the story was because he didn’t want to somehow insult Josh.
Matt shook his head, then reached back up to shove the still-damp strands of hair out of his eyes. “It’s not…you don’t…FUCK,” he said again, stammering, seeming to try harder than necessary to find the right words, neither confirming nor denying Josh’s question.
Josh actually started to feel a little sorry for the guitar player, so he slid himself to the edge of his seat and looked up at Matt, catching his eyes. “Look at me,” he directed when the brunet instantly pulled his gaze away. He waited until Matt’s focal point was back on him and he ran his hands over the arms of the chair nervously. “It’s just us. Whatever this is, it stays between you and me. Besides, who the fuck am I to judge?”
Finally, Matt nodded and opened his mouth, then quickly shut it. He took another breath that sounded a little ragged to Josh, but the singer knew that none of what he was asking the other man to do was easy. It hadn’t been easy on him when he’d had to talk about his own problems, and Matt’s issue was, presumably, no better or worse, just different. “Okay, here goes. Back in grade ten, you know I used to play hockey, right?”
“Dude, back in grade ten, everybody played hockey. This is Canada.” Fuck, he just had to be a smartass, didn’t he? He bit the inside of his cheek, hoping that Matt would just…ignore him like most people did when he got more than a little unbearable.
“Shut. The fuck. Up,” the brunet said haltingly. “If you really wanna fucking hear this, then just shut up.”
Josh ducked his head, allowing his hair to fall into his eyes. He’d always used that as a convenient way to hide, and this time was no exception. It helped any time he felt like he wasn’t good enough, and his little quip to Matt had shoved him over that edge in this conversation. “Sorry.”
Matt dipped his head once in acknowledgement and loosened his grip on the couch. He smoothed out the wrinkles and rested his palms back in the same spots, lightly running the tips of his fingers over the textured blue fabric several times before speaking again. “Do you remember a guy from high school named Daniel Taylor?”
The singer thought for a minute, quickly mentally scanning the names and faces of everyone he could still barely remember from his time in school. “No, I don’t think so. Did we have some class together or something?”
“I dunno, maybe. I’m not sure you ever talked to him, to be honest. He was a really fuckin’ smart guy. Nice, too. Always went way out of his way to help people. Pretty popular with the right crowd, but not everyone knew him. He and his friends used to dress all in black and a lot of people seemed to avoid them,” Matt described. He shifted on his feet, still choosing to stand behind the couch to keep some distance between them.
Josh thought for a minute that Matt could have been describing him, but he hadn’t been that nice. “I tried, but I just don’t remember him, dude. I’m sorry. ” Josh shrugged his shoulders, still working extremely hard to put a face and a name together, but coming up blank.
“It…whatever. It doesn’t matter, I guess. It’s not that important.”
“Just remember who the fuck I was back then, Matt. There were days when I didn’t even know my own name…” The singer picked up his soda bottle and uncapped it, taking several sips and putting it back down again. His mouth had started to go dry because he was getting more than a little nervous waiting to hear the rest of the story.
“Yeah, I suppose,” Matt agreed, staring down at the couch and the balled up blanket that Josh had left there two days prior. “This guy…man, as nice as everyone thought he was, he just…fuck, Josh, I really don’t wanna tell this story.”
“Do it, Matt. I fuckin’ need to hear this. Please.” Josh stood and changed seats, settling himself down on the opposite end of the couch from where the guitar player stood. He twisted his body to sit facing Matt with one leg tucked under his body and the other foot planted on the floor as he rested his arm along the back of the couch.
“GAHHHH!!! GOD-FUCKING-DAMMIT!” the brunet yelled, leaning over and resting his forehead on the couch, clenching at his hair with both hands quickly before releasing it. He groaned quietly into the material before righting himself again. “Fine. Alright.” Matt rubbed his hands across his face, making Josh wonder what the hell was so bad that his friend was this worked up about talking about it.
The brunet exhaled quietly, then walked around the couch to stand in front of Josh, closing his eyes. “Grade ten. Daniel Taylor. The hockey team and I went out to get something to eat after practice one day like we almost always did.” He folded his arms across his chest and pulled the fabric of his shirt into his fists while he spoke. “The guys and I, we were just bullshitting about nothing - girls, the practices, how psychotic the coach was…you know how it goes. Dan was there with a group of his friends, too, sitting in the booth behind us. There must’ve been eight or ten of them. Anyway, everyone shut up when the food came, and I could hear Dan’s part of their conversation.”
Josh could see Matt gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut even tighter. The singer turned in his seat to face the guitar player again while he waited for the rest of the story.
“It turns out, Dan wasn’t as great as anyone thought he was. At first, he was just making asshole comments about some of the other kids in the class. No one I knew. But then I caught the words, “…fucking faggot Ramsay. Why the hell does that Webb kid hang out with him? He’s on the hockey team, for Christ’s sake. Why would anyone like that want anything to do with a fucking addict?” Then the jokes about you and the laughing started.” Matt’s eyes opened and Josh stared up into them, nodding.
“Keep talking…,” he prompted evenly. Josh wasn’t at all surprised that things like that were said about him back in high school. Hell, people still spoke that way about him, but he’d long since stopped giving much of a shit about what people thought. It bothered him now and then when people shared their opinions without ever knowing him, but he didn’t care all that much. Someone’s negative ideas of him had never caused him to lose any sleep.
Matt took a deep breath and angrily jammed his hands down into his pockets. “Dan and his jerkoff friends cornered me in the bathroom about half an hour later. Basically, they told me they’d make my life a living hell, and they said…”
He closed his mouth, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling before moving to sit down on the couch opposite Josh. The brunet wrapped his fingers in the blanket between himself and Josh, but the singer didn’t miss the fact that his hand had been balled into a tight fist at the memory. “…they said that you didn’t deserve to live and that I deserved to die just for knowing you.”
Josh would be lying if he didn’t say that hearing that hurt, even just a little. He’d had death threats before and he’d had people tell him that he shouldn’t be alive, or that he was a disgrace, that the drugs should have killed him, that he should have killed himself to save his parents the worry and the embarrassment. He’d heard it all and then some over the years. As much as all of that had gotten to him back then, none of it ever compared to what he put himself through over the years. Josh was, however, surprised that someone had the balls to say that to Matt. Even worse, he felt terrible that Matt had been treated that way just because of who Josh had been back then. That wasn’t Matt’s fault and it shouldn’t have been his problem.
“Jesus, dude,” Josh breathed.
“There’s more,” the younger man said, now winding the blanket tightly in his hands. “Dan and his friends had me backed up against the wall, just throwing every shitty insult or threat they could think of at me. They told me how they all thought that I was a “fucking fag” just for hanging out with you. How they were gonna spread rumours that I was caught blowing you in the locker room after a game. They told me more than once that they thought I’d be better off dead, too. Man, I swear that I didn’t care anything about the shit they said about me. And I swear to fucking God that I stood up for you. I couldn’t…I hated that they were talking about you that way.” Matt said quickly, nearly running his words together faster than Josh could keep up.
“It’s…it’s okay, dude. I believe you. It was a long time ago. Keep going.” Josh ducked his head and pulled a pillow onto his lap so he had something to focus on besides just the words he was hearing. He wasn’t thrilled to be listening to what Matt had to say, but he’d forced the brunet into telling the story, and now he had to sit through the rest. It was a little sick and a little twisted, but he wanted to hear it to the end.
“That asshole and his friends are the ones who spray painted “Death to the freak” on your locker that one week before Christmas break. They’re the ones who keyed your car in the school parking lot around the same time.” Matt’s voice dropped as he ducked his head again and pulled the blanket over his lap. “They’re the ones that cut the strings on the guitar you left in the band room. They’re also the reason I was kicked off the damn hockey team.”
Josh moved enough to pull his leg out from under him and he crossed his right over his left, moving the pillow to the center of the couch in order to play with a loose string on the bottom hem of his shirt instead. “Those were the fuckers who pulled all that shit? I wish I had known back then, dude…I really do. But, wait! How the hell did that get you kicked off the hockey team? I thought you had to quit because you had that after school job.”
“I got the job after I got canned from the team. I…uh…suddenly seemed to have the free time to take one, and I had nothing better to do.” Matt shrugged his shoulders, still keeping his gaze on his hands. The blanket was now spiraled in a tight coil between his fists. “These bastards, they were constantly shoving notes into my locker about how I was gonna wind up like you, you know…how you were back then, and how we’d both end up dead if I kept you around. They told me about the guitar strings and your car and said that if I ever told anyone, they’d make me pay and that I’d deserve what was coming to me. They said they’d “take care of” you too. They told me that they were doing this all just because I was friends with you and because they hated you for some stupid reason. I don’t know why they fucking targeted me, since you did have other people you hung out with.” Matt let go of the blanket and rubbed his hands over his face again, shaking his head.
Josh lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug, keeping his head down and his eyes focused on the string he continually wrapped and unwrapped around his finger. “I dunno, dude. Maybe because everyone else I hung out with was just like me. You know, fucking worthless losers. You were different. An athlete who was smart enough not to get wrapped up in my shit,” he said flatly.
“You’ve never been a saint, but you weren’t worthless,” Matt started to disagree.
Josh held the bottom of his shirt with one hand and ripped the string from it with the other, letting it fall to the floor before stopping Matt in mid-sentence. “No, I really was, dude. I know what I was like back then. You don’t need to defend who I was. I know better now. Just…get on with it.”
The guitarist nodded, slinking down a bit further in his seat. “Once I knew all that shit, I waited. It took a couple of months, but I finally had my chance to corner Dan alone this time. He showed up at my hockey practice just to fucking throw me off my game, and he actually did. He got into my head and that’s when I knew I had to do something. Anything. Anyway, after practice, I dragged him into the locker room and told him that I didn’t deserve any of the crap he was doing to me. Neither did you. While he was trying to be fucking funny, mimicking you by doing something completely stupid, I kind of…fuck… Okay, I kind of broke my hockey stick across his shoulder. He was in a cast for two months and that’s how I got kicked off the team. Because Dan wouldn’t admit to shit, the coach and principal called it “unsolicited abuse”,” the younger man said, moving his fingers in an ‘air quotes’ motion.
Josh opened his mouth to speak, but was stopped by Matt this time, who held a hand up asking for more time to continue to explain. “I couldn’t tell you, because I didn’t fucking want you to know. I didn’t…it was too fucking awful. You meant a lot to me back then. You were a good friend. You are a good friend. You did a lot for me back in high school and I wanted to try to do something for you too. Couldn’t tell the team because they didn’t like you either. Really, they just didn’t understand you. Sports guys versus artsy types, you know…? Couldn’t tell my parents because they always felt like I should be able to handle shit like that on my own. Jock…right? Joke was more like it. That whole thing was just so shitty. Right before I was able to take care of Dan, you got expelled from school, so the whole situation was really fucking pointless anyway. Jesus Christ, I feel so guilty about all of that shit. I should have told you. I should have…you should have known.” Matt took another deep breath and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands.
Once Matt had finished his story, Josh nodded his head and sighed quietly. It was true that he had been somewhat oblivious in high school. He’d been bullied, but he’d never really realized to what extent. Yes, his locker had been spray painted; yes, his car had been keyed; yes, his guitar strings had been cut, but he was so fucking out of his mind thanks to the drinking and the drugs he was doing that he never really gave any thought to it at the time. Well, no more than enough to a shake his head, shrug his shoulders and move past what had happened. Once he was expelled, he never looked back or thought on those particular instances again.
The singer stood and paced back and forth in front of the guitar player silently for several minutes until he stopped short in front of where the younger man sat with his hands folded in his lap, staring down at them. “Dude, you have no fucking idea how sorry I am that you had to deal with that shit. It shouldn’t have happened. It should have been me and me alone. I could’ve handled it. I could have…I dunno… I could’ve done something. It wasn’t right for those motherfuckers to have pinned my shit on you.”
“No, it’s okay. I got through it. I did what I had to do and it worked out. They left me alone after that, and you and I are still friends, so it all turned out fine in the end, right? It’s just…tough to think about. It wasn’t exactly an easy time for me.” The guitar player took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Rather than continuing to dwell on the past story itself, Josh chose to focus on his main reason for the whole conversation. “Right there, what you just said. Do you see, Matt? Do you see how fucking hard that was for you to talk about?”
The brunet nodded and swallowed hard.
“Do you have any idea why I asked you to tell me that?” Josh hooked his thumbs through his belt loops while he waited for an answer.
Matt shook his head, took another deep breath and sniffed once. He wasn’t crying, but he did look completely drained. Josh had even more sympathy and felt even worse for forcing those memories from his friend, but he also felt like he didn’t have any other choice. Slowly, the older man knelt in the center of the floor so he was closer to eye-level with Matt, rather than staring down at him. Josh put his hands on his thighs and spoke gently. “Matt, I didn’t ask you to talk about that just to make you feel like shit. I’m really fucking sorry for that. It took fucking guts, though, dude. So did standing up for me like that in high school. Seriously. People…they really didn’t want much to do with me back then, but you did. Thanks for that.”
The guitar player lifted the corner of his mouth in a slight smile. “It’s what friends do. But…why, man? Why the hell did you make me tell you that stuff?”
“I promise I asked for a reason. You’re still with me here, right?”
“Yeah,” the guitar player answered thickly.
“You truly wanna know why I put you through that?” Josh tilted his head to the side and tried his best to keep calm. He had nearly given himself an anxiety attack trying to coax the words from Matt.
“Yeah,” the other man repeated, tugging on the cuffs of his shirt.
“Do you feel what that did to you? Everything you just said…all that shit…do you feel it in your chest? Are you kinda light-headed? Is your heart pounding? Are you nauseous? Do you feel like…I dunno…do you feel like you’re sixteen all over again and having to face your parents to finally tell them what happened? Do you feel like you’re back in that fucking bathroom, backed against a wall with no way out? Trapped? Do you feel that same nervousness and anxiety in the pit of your stomach? Is it a little hard to breathe? Would you rather do absolutely anything than sit in this room with me and think about all of that fucking past shit all over again?” Josh gripped at the front of his shirt and pulled it away from his body slightly while he spoke, as if it was constricting his own breathing. He was already feeling the same way Matt was, and it wasn’t even really his story that was told.
“All of that,” Matt rasped, finally looking up at Josh with dry, but red-rimmed eyes that suddenly seemed very tired.
“Then…do you understand? Do you finally get it, Matt? That’s how I feel every single fucking time I think about what everyone wants me to write about. It just rips right through me. I don’t know if I can put myself through that shit long enough to write an entire album worth of songs. I can barely keep myself together long enough write three songs.” Josh shifted his position to sit cross-legged on the floor while he played with the laces on his shoe. “It’s just so much, dude… You know that I’d do anything for this fucking band and for you guys, but goddamn. What you’re feeling now is exactly how I feel every time I think about my own life. It’s even worse when I talk about it, especially with people I don’t know, and I sure as hell don’t want to put all of that personal stuff out there for the world. They just…no one else needs to know. And, dude…how the fuck would I ever be able to get on a stage and sing about that shit without having some sort of panic attack every damn time?” The singer finally, after all this time, felt like he was getting through to Matt. He’d finally found a way to make the younger man understand why it was all so hard for him. He just hoped that it would make enough of a difference to allow him to stop pushing himself so hard in a direction that he didn’t want to go.
Josh truly did want to be able to think about his past without becoming a basket case over it all. He wished he could write about everything, because he knew how much it would help to get it out of his mind, or better yet, help someone else who might be going through something similar. But, he couldn’t figure out how to do it without stressing himself out so much that he couldn’t handle it. It scared him to think what would happen if he ever had to really pour his emotions about a situation into a song, then sing about all of that in front of real people who would surely be able to detect the pain behind his eyes or in the slight crack of his voice as he let them in on the words he wrote that hit so close to home. He never wanted to wear his heart on his sleeve like that. It worried Josh even more to know that someday, if he ever worked up the nerve to write about the things that haunted him, he would have to discuss it all in interviews or with fans after a live show, and he didn’t think that he’d be able to joke his way through such a serious situation, pretending like he was beyond letting his own past get to him as much as it still truly did. “It just…fucking hurts, dude.”
The singer straightened his legs and let himself slowly relax until he was lying on his back on the floor with his knees bent and his feet flat on the carpet, staring up at the ceiling. He rested his hands on his ribcage and he could feel his heart beating steadily beneath his fingers. It had an oddly calming effect, the rhythmic pounding. It was a quick beat that made him tap his fingers lightly against his body in response.
Several minutes of silence went by and all Josh could hear was his own breathing interspersed with the occasional sniff from Matt. It was a habit that the guitar player had when he got too overwhelmed by anything. “Josh, man…I get what you’re trying to say. I really do. It makes all the fucking sense in the world to me now,” Matt eventually said quietly. “The guys and I, you know we don’t want you to do anything you don’t wanna do. Not even for something as important as this.”
Josh continued to drum his fingers on his chest for a bit longer, concentrating on the motions rather than Matt’s words. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate what was being said. He just didn’t know how to respond to it. On one hand, he’d always had a very “fuck you” attitude toward anyone who tried to force him into doing or saying something he didn’t want to do. On the other hand, there was Matt telling him that he didn’t have to do anything he didn’t feel comfortable with, even though he desperately wanted to be able to move away from everything that had been holding him back. “Thanks,” Josh said, turning his head to look at the younger man, still perched on the couch with one leg crossed over the other, his ankle resting on the opposite knee. He was fiddling with the cuff of his ragged pant leg, twisting it between his fingers and letting it go again.
“You know I wanna do this, don’t you?” Josh moved a hand from his chest to shove his hair out of his eyes. It had finally dried and was now impossible to keep out of his vision since he had tilted his head to face the guitar player. Sighing in slight frustration, he sat up and shoved both hands through his hair again, doing his best to keep it from annoying the shit out of him while Matt watched. He must have looked like a lunatic with head lice.
Matt nodded. “We all know that, man. Josh…?”
The singer decided to forget about his hair for the moment and dropped his hands away from his head, leaning back on his hands, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing them at the ankles. “Hmm?”
“This whole thing…everything you’re so fucking worried about. It’s all in the past. Things are so much different for you now. You know you’re just chasing ghosts, right? No…you’re letting them chase you. If you’d stop running, stop fighting us, maybe we could help you. Turn and fucking fight them instead of struggling against using that shit to your advantage.” Matt seemed hesitant to say anything like that, especially after the conversation they’d just had, but he slowly let out what seemed to be on his mind. Josh admired the younger man for that, but nothing was nearly as easy as Matt was trying to make it out to be.
“Chasing ghosts? Yeah…you could be right. Maybe that really is what I’m doing, but all of this is no “Casper”, dude. This is, like, the demon that possessed that chick in the “Ghostbusters” movie.”
Matt looked up at Josh and smirked. “Yeah, but she had better tits than you do.”
Laughing harder than he had in days, Josh sat forward and sucked in his stomach, sliding the palms of his hands down his chest. “You have the fucking nerve to say that to me? With this figure?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do! And what the fuck are you gonna do about it?” Matt countered, throwing a pillow at Josh and knocking him off balance, causing him to put a hand down on the floor to keep from landing flat on his back again.
“At least I make up for it where it counts,” the singer said, tossing the pillow back toward the other end of the couch, then gesturing to his crotch. “Not a single fucking complaint here, dude! Unlike what I’ve heard about you.”
“Oh, fuck you, Ramsay!” The guitarist laughed and stuck a booted foot out to kick at Josh’s shoes. “The only complaint I’ve ever had was from your mom, and that’s only ‘cause she couldn’t handle it!”
“We’re gonna go there, are we?” Josh braced his hands against the floor and pushed himself to his feet, his hands quickly working to unbuckle his belt. “Let’s whip ‘em out right now and measure! Winner takes all.”
“NO! Fuck! No, you win.” Matt’s hands flew up to his face as he covered his eyes. “That’s nothing I ever wanna see, man. Keep that in your pants.”
Laughing again, Josh buckled his belt again and dropped down heavily onto the opposite end of the couch, sitting on the same pillow he’d been hit with minutes before. Sighing with a smile on his face, he said, “Thanks, dude, I needed that.”
“Me too,” Matt admitted, lowering his hands and nodding his head, his mood suddenly turning back to serious for the moment. “Josh, man…listen, we’ll understand if there’s something you can’t write about. You’re not doing this alone. I promise. Just…do what you can.” He reached out and lightly laid a hand on the singer’s shoulder, squeezing it gently.
Josh crossed an arm over his chest and covered Matt’s hand with his own before letting go again and slouching back against the couch. “I’ll try.”
“That’s all it takes. That’s seriously all we can ask.” The brunet lifted his hand and copied the way Josh was sitting against the back of the couch. The singer mulled over what Matt had said while he tried to swallow more of the worry and self-doubt he’d been feeling. This time, it worked, even if it was just a little bit.
Four days later, Josh had gotten a call from Simkin asking for one more song, telling the singer that his own bosses definitely now wanted to sign the band, but were requesting to hear something even more stripped down and raw first. They wanted minimal instrumental invasion and more vocals just to see what kind of range the boys had before any contracts were drawn up. So, that afternoon Josh set to work penning something he had never wanted to compose for anyone else before. If he wanted to admit it, Josh had written about it in a private journal once upon a time, and he’d had to talk about it when he was in the rehab and treatment center years ago, but writing about his teenage eating disorders with the intent to put it into a song had never seemed significant enough. But, there he was, sitting in his dimly lit kitchen once again well after midnight, slowly scrawling out words and reliving the same fucking feelings all over again. He didn’t eat that night, or the next.
The song was completed, somehow getting written in only several days. When he first got the phone call from Simkin, he had, in turn, spoken to each of the other three members of the band to explain what was going on. He’d already had the idea for the song running through his mind the day he had spoken with Matt alone in his apartment, so he told them that it was one he wanted to finish privately at first, and Josh was lucky enough that they’d all been so supportive of that. The men would all eventually show up at the studio to add their own instrumental and vocal parts, but the singer needed to get through it alone before ever letting anyone else in on his heartbreak.
Thursday evening crept up quietly on Josh. He now stood in the sound booth by himself while Matt manned the control board at Little Mountain. The older man slipped the headphones on over his ears and tried to psych himself up to sing one of the most gut-wrenching things he’d ever orchestrated. In the beginning, he only trusted Matt to read his lyrics, but eventually he would be calling Mike and Ian into the studio as well. Josh just needed to get through singing it aloud in front of another living being before he could let down his guard enough to show himself and his words off to a bigger audience, even though this was a song that they were going to have to submit to Simkin very soon. It was just too hard on his heart to put it out there into the world without slowly easing himself into the idea first.
Josh watched as Matt reached over and touched a finger to the speaker button, his voice coming through the headphones. “You ready, man?”
“Fuck, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” the older man answered, talking into the microphone at mouth-level and subconsciously tugging on the lapels of his leather jacket to tighten it around his body. He’d flat-out refused to take the jacket off, as it now felt more like a safety blanket that he needed for protection against the demons in his head.
The singer blankly stared at the neatly typed lyrics on the pages sitting on the music stand in front of him. They were mostly just there for convenience. Josh didn’t really need the words; he’d written them. He knew them by heart. He knew them well enough to know that they could shatter his entire world if he let them, but he wouldn’t. Not now. He couldn’t. Josh could see how the song would most likely someday be a problem in the future, for sure, but at that exact moment, he felt ready to share it with the guitar player.
“You can do this,” Matt assured Josh, locking eyes with him through the thick glass between them. “In three…two…one.” He lifted his finger off the speaker button and hit the playback button so the singer could hear the soft tones ringing in his ears.
Josh moved his hands from his jacket to either side of the headphones and closed his eyes, feeling both the melody and the anticipation of his words hitting him hard and fast in the chest. He was able to get through the first verse with his eyes shut, venturing a quick glance out at Matt only once. The younger man was watching him with intensity, but it didn’t feel as uncomfortable as it should have. In the brief moment that Josh had caught, the look seemed to be more concern than anything else. “Feeling so easy, make me skin and bones, I’m always on my knees for you…” The singer slipped a hand down to lightly rest it against his stomach during an instrumental break between lines. He was rapidly starting to feel more than a little self-conscious as he worked his way through the chorus.
By the second verse, Josh had stepped back from the microphone and was shaking his head. “I can’t. I can’t do it. It’s – it’s, no. I can’t.” He pulled the headphones over his head and hung them on the music stand before taking several more steps backwards, separating himself further from the equipment and folding his arms across his chest.
Josh watched as Matt stopped the playback of the music and disappeared from sight, coming into view seconds later as he pulled open the door and stepped into the room. With eyebrows raised at the singer, the guitar player propped his body against the doorframe, similarly to the way Josh had done the last time they had recorded. “Why’d you stop, man? It was sounding pretty rad. You were doing great. You alright?”
“You fuckin’ heard it, dude!” Josh gestured wildly to the sound board in the other room. “You know exactly what I was singing about. I can’t do this. I wrote it, but I can’t…it’s…I…FUCK. It’s too fucking hard,” he stammered.
Matt nodded and crossed his arms casually, staring down at the floor near his feet. “Okay, Josh” he said gently.
“What? Seriously? I wasted all that fucking time writing it and we went through all this shit, and you’re just…fine with me just dropping it just like that?” The singer took a step closer to the brunet, letting his arms fall to his sides.
The guitar player lifted his eyes back up to meet Josh’s and smiled faintly. “I told you before that the guys and I aren’t gonna force you to do something you aren’t comfortable with. If you don’t wanna do this, if you don’t wanna sing these words,” he said pointing to the music stand, “that’s your call. It’s okay, man. We’ll come up with something else, you know? It’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“Jesus Christ, I wish that I could just fucking do this.” He turned and gave a swift kick to the wall beside him, bracing his hand against it, then drawing his body in closer in order to rest his forehead against his arm. If he was someone who was prone to crying, he was sure that he would have been a mess by now. Instead, his vision had gone a little blurry and he was a little shaky, but still dry-eyed.
He could feel Matt’s eyes drilling a hole through the back of his skull. “Do you wanna try to give the song another shot?” he heard the brunet suggest. Matt might have only been several metres across the room, but he sounded so far away to the singer. Maybe it was just that his voice was muted over the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in the singer’s ears.
Nodding, Josh mumbled into the soft leather in front of his face, “Yeah…I…yeah. Just…in a minute.”
“I get it, man. Take all the time you need. I’ll be right out there when you’re ready.” The soft click of the door meant that Josh was now alone in the room again. He felt like a fucking zoo monkey, knowing that Matt was probably still out there, watching him cower and shake in the corner of his enclosed, exposed little glass box. The vulnerable feeling was only made worse by his embarrassment about not being able to get through his own song. He’d written the thing for Christ’s sake, why couldn’t he just fucking sing it? Matt knew all about what he had been through years ago; he was there. He saw Josh go through everything as it was happening. None of it was a goddamn secret. Just do it.
Josh huffed into his sleeve and pulled his face away from his arm, yanking his jacket off and dropping to the floor where he stood. He was going to have to grow a pair, and to do that, he needed to rid himself of everything he was choosing to hide behind. The singer carefully stepped over the jacket and walked back up to the microphone, grabbing the headphones and dragging them up over his forehead, pushing his hair up and out of his eyes so he could no longer use that as a mask either. He situated the headphones back over his ears and took a slow, deep breath, which, admittedly helped to calm him.
Looking up to signal to Matt that he was ready to try again, he was surprised that the brown eyes he’d expected to see staring back at him weren’t there. Instead, the guitar player was reclined back on the couch across the room with a magazine in his hands and his back to the glass pane. Josh gained that much more respect for Matt at that moment. He’d left the older man alone to work out his problem, but he hadn’t left Josh completely. Matt must have honestly meant it when he said that Josh could take all the time he needed and that he really didn’t have to sing something he didn’t want to. The singer hadn’t truly thought that those were just words when they were spoken, but it helped that Matt had proven it to him when he really needed it.
Josh knocked lightly on the glass to get the brunet’s attention, accidentally startling him. The singer smiled when Matt jumped and dropped the magazine on his lap before tossing it onto the table and standing. He could see the younger man laughing to himself as he crossed the room and moved to sit behind the control board again, reaching over to hit the speaker button. “You ready to try again? It’s ‘go’ time?” he asked in a gentle tone.
The singer nodded and stepped back behind the microphone to try once more. “Do what you can,” Matt reminded him. “In three…two…one…”
The next couple of days flew by. Josh didn’t sleep, but he didn’t feel the need to. Once he finally shared the band’s new song with Mike and Ian, he had some renewed energy that he hadn’t felt in a long time. Their faith in him and their encouragement fueled him to keep going, and by the end of the week, all four men were standing in the lobby of 604 records waiting to drop off the finished product to Simkin.
“We’re here to see Jonathan Simkin again,” the singer said stepping up to the reception desk, wearing his brightest smile. Instead of being wary and tense as he was during the previous visits, he took advice from Mike and tried to exude positivity. Some of it was artificial, but mostly he knew how good the band was and that they were only one song away from being signed to the record label.
“Do you have an appointment?” the secretary joked, smiling up at him from behind her post.
Josh laughed and nodded. “Yeah. Simkin called me about…um…about a record contract and told me to bring the rest of the guys and another song, so he set it up the other day.”
“Okay, honey, he’s back in his office and I’ll go tell him that you’re here. Have a seat.” She turned from Josh and disappeared down the hallway.
Josh spun on his heel to face the rest of the men and smiled at them. “Fuck, you guys, this is it. This is it.”
“We won’t blow it. We killed it with this song,” Mike said giving Josh his warmest smile and clapping the singer on the shoulder. “You really pulled through on this one, you know.”
Josh’s face fell a little and he only offered another weak smile in return, the recollections of writing and recording the song he was holding on a brand new disc in his pocket closing in on him again. Relief hit when the secretary called him by name and told him that Simkin was ready to see the band back in his office. “You know where it is. Good luck!” She followed that with a warning that the band wouldn’t be alone with Simkin in there.
Beside him, the singer felt Matt take a deep breath and he saw Ian roll his eyes up to the ceiling and smooth out the front of his shirt. “Now or never, you guys,” the drummer said quietly, following behind Josh as the singer lead the way back to Simkin’s office.
Knocking twice, a voice on the other side told them to enter and Josh thought he would once again have a heart attack in this same fucking office as soon as he saw the amount of people crammed into that tiny little room. Simkin sat at his desk surrounded by five other men, all dressed in white button-down shirts and ties. “These are the guys from Marianas Trench that I’ve been telling you about,” Simkin said standing and gesturing to the four younger men who had just walked into the room. He closed the door behind them and waved them further into the room.
Josh shook hands and shot smiles all around, feeling a little more in over his head than he ever thought he would. More false confidence, more faked courage. The men in ties each introduced themselves as Simkin’s bosses, and collectively, they all decided as a group who would be signed to 604 Records. A man in a green tie seemed to be the spokesman for the group. He had been sitting on the corner of Simkin’s desk when the band walked in, but stood as they were introduced by name, which Josh heard and promptly forgot.
Green Tie took a step around two other men and addressed the band. “I know Jonathan told you that we wanted to hear one more song from you, correct?” Josh nodded and pulled the final CD case from the pocket of his jacket, handing it over to the man standing in front of him. In turn, Green Tie held it out to Simkin who sat behind his desk and spun in his chair, slipping the disc into the CD player. “See that folder?”
“Yeah,” Ian answered as everyone dropped their eyes to the center of the desk.
“That folder contains a contract for you guys if this song is what we wanted to hear,” Green Tie said, stepping back again and tucking his hands into the pockets of his pants. “We all ready to hear this new stuff?”
Josh swallowed hard and nodded again. “We’re ready, yeah?” he asked, turning to look at the three men at his sides.
Mike rested a hand on the singer’s shoulder again and nodded as well. “We’re ready.”
“Play the fuc-, play it,” the singer amended his words, trying to sound a little more professional for the first time in his life. He knew it wouldn’t last, but it felt like the necessary thing to do at the time.
With those words spoken, Simkin pressed the ‘play’ button and Josh closed his eyes as he heard the first words of the song he’d struggled so hard to write playing back to him. Just as he’d done in the studio with Matt, he subtly rested a hand against his stomach, reminding himself what it was all about and how far he’d come compared to the person he used to be. He felt Mike squeeze his shoulder as the words lead up to the chorus, and he was grateful because the bassist’s touch helped to ground him against the distant memories he had of locking various bathroom doors behind him and throwing himself to his knees right after mealtimes.
“I will burn all this…,” Josh mouthed along with the CD as the song slowly came to a close and faded out. He opened his eyes to see every man in the room staring at him. His eyes widened and he took a step back, nudging Mike out of the way and pulling out of the older man’s grip. “What?” he asked, tugging his jacket tighter around his body, suddenly feeling like he was facing that same fucking firing squad all over again.
Green Tie glanced over at Simkin, who only nodded once in Josh’s direction. “This…? This is what you chose to write about?” he questioned, pointing over at the CD player.
“Yeah,” answered the singer, nodding slightly, quickly becoming more worried about his future with each word someone else spoke.
Green Tie sat back down on the edge of the desk and stared at the tips of his polished black shoes, resting his hands on his knees. “When we said “raw”, we didn’t know it would be quite like that.” The man almost sounded sorry that so much had been asked of Josh.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Ian asked, stepping up to the singer, as if blocking the younger man with his body would save him from any potential harsh words.
“I have to tell you that this is one of the best and most honest things that’s come across this office since I’ve been here.” Green Tie finally looked up at Josh, who let out a slow breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Are you really this good at pulling stuff out of thin air or was this some kind of auto-biographical song or something?”
All Josh could do was nod at first. It was starting already. He knew it. He just fucking knew it. Now the questions would start and he’d have to tell all of these fucking strangers about his goddamn past. “Or something,” he managed.
“That’s…Jesus. Okay, I won’t pry.” Green Tie rubbed a hand across his face and stood, reaching behind him to grab the manila folder. He opened it and dropped it onto the desk along with the pen from his pocket. “You know that Jonathan is our lawyer here and he’s gone over this contract with a fine-tooth comb. You’ve got it made. All you boys have to do is sign.”
Once again, Josh heard Matt take a breath and speak up. “Can we all have a minute to talk first?” The singer was oddly at peace with Matt taking charge for the moment. He still couldn’t get over the fact that he’d just exposed so much of himself to people who had only just learned his name.
“You can use my empty office,” a bald man with a maroon tie said, pointing directly across the hallway to an identical room with the door open.
“Thanks,” the guitarist said, gently tugging on Josh’s sleeve. All four men filed out of the room, shutting the door behind them. They crossed the hallway, and entered the empty office, closing that door as well for extra privacy.
Mike and Josh sat up on the desk while Matt and Ian took the two chairs in front. Matt propped his feet up on the desk and crossed his legs at the ankles, tipping the chair back slightly. “Shit, guys. This is crazy, isn’t it? All we have to do is sign that one stupid piece of paper and we have a record deal. This is insane. This is what we’ve been busting our asses for over all these years.”
“Yeah, but are we ready to do this?” Ian asked, catching the eyes of the other three men. Everyone nodded but Josh.
“I want this. I really fucking want this,” the singer said, sliding his body a little further back on the desk.
“But are you ready?” Matt asked, letting his chair drop and swinging his feet back down to the floor. “These songs, they’re your words, man. This is so much more you than it is us. This is your life. We’re selling your soul here, not ours.”
Josh focused his eyes on the bottom of his jacket, playing with the bottom button. He didn’t know how the brunet knew what he was thinking, but it didn’t surprise him. Was he ready? He let a group of strangers in on part of his past just a few minutes ago and the world didn’t end, so maybe it wasn’t as bad as he was anticipating. “Sell my soul, sell my body by the pound, dude. It doesn’t matter. I guess…yeah, I’m ready. Let’s do this.”
Mike rested his hands against the edge of the desk and leaned forward slightly. “Josh, you’re sure? Seriously? Remember what we said. We’re in this together.”
The singer slid easily off the desk and grabbed at each of the other three men as they stood to pull them in closer for a quick group hug. “Yeah, I’m ready. I want this. But, here’s the fuckin’ truth though, you guys. These might be my words, but it’s not just me, it’s us. And you’re right, we’re in this together,” he said, reiterating something that each of the men had told him at least once over the last couple of months.
“We stay the fuck together no matter what,” Mike said, gripping the shoulders of the drummer and the singer at his left and right.
“We stay the fuck together,” the men repeated as a group before stepping away from one another.
Josh took a deep breath and straightened out his jacket before glancing through the window and across the hall into Simkin’s office. “Let’s do it.” He grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door open, stepping out into the hall.
Once again, he lead the way to their destinies as he knocked on Simkin’s door and opened it. “We talked about it and we’re fuckin’ ready to do this,” the singer said, stepping up to the desk as each one of the men in ties looked up when they walked into the room.
Simkin spent the next hour discussing everything from terms and conditions to health benefits with each one of the men before producing a copy of the contract for each of the men to sign. Matt was the first to be handed the pen, scrawling his name with a shaky hand. Then Mike stepped forward to seal himself into the deal. The pen was passed to Ian, who glanced quickly at his own typed name on the official paperwork before signing.
Josh took the pen from Ian’s hand and stepped in closer to the desk. He stared down at the words that seemed to swim together under the bold black word “CONTRACT” at the top of the page as Simkin pointed a finger at the “X” on the bottom. He knew that once his name was on this document, his life was no longer his own. Not anymore. Still, he signed his name on the dotted line for his would-be fate without hesitation. For all intents and purposes, his old life was now dead and buried, and it was on to bigger and better things. He wanted to leave his past behind and move on. “Do not resuscitate…,” he mumbled, capping the pen and setting it down.
After quite a few rounds of congratulating the band, the four men left Simkin’s office, all talking excitedly about their futures and the stardom that they knew without a doubt was in store for them. The secretary stepped out from behind her desk and smiled at the band, blocking their path. “How’d it go?”
Josh held up a copy of his contract and grinned. He could see her look to the other three who copied the singer’s gesture and she hugged each one of them tightly before releasing them. “I’m so proud of you. Each of you. You all worked so hard to get this. I know you did.” She wiped her eyes once and Josh could hardly believe that this woman, who he barely knew, was this emotional over his moment.
“Thanks,” Ian answered, smiling at her. “It…yeah, it took a lot,” he said, cutting his eyes to Josh quickly.
“Go celebrate! Don’t stand around here talking to an old lady like me when you should be throwing yourselves a party!” The secretary waved the boys out the door and onto the street.
Back out in the parking lot, Josh leaned across the hood of Matt’s car on his arms and dropped his head down onto the metal. “Aaahhh! I can’t believe it!” Straightening himself, he couldn’t wipe the smile from his face. “We worked for so many fucking years doing so many fucking sucky things to get here. I don’t…it’s like…I don’t know what to do with myself now.”
Matt patted Josh on the back and pushed himself to sit on the hood of his car with his feet on the bumper. He looked down at the contract they each still held in their hands and smiled. “Who knew, ya know? Who ever knew we’d get to this point? This is good, isn’t it? It’s good. None of it was just handed to us.”
“I think it’s better this way,” Josh agreed, folding his own contract in half and tucking it into his pocket. “This is good…in a bad way,” he admitted slowly.
He saw Mike frown a little. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning…we got what we wanted, but now they own us. They fuckin’ own us, dude. Not only that, but now they know the kinda shit I can write and it just might drive me absolutely insane to compose and record this stuff. It’s great for us, but it might not be so great for me. I see a lot of long nights and a lot of fucking hard times coming up. But…no, it’s better this way. It’ll be fine,” the singer said, trying his best to be positive about what he knew the future would hold for him. He drummed his fingers against the car quickly before pulling his hands away again and looking back up at the rest of the men. “Right?”
“It will. You’ll see. We’ll be international platinum selling rockstars,” Mike predicted, grinning and moving his body into an air guitar pose, causing the rest of the band to laugh. They each allowed themselves to dream a little bigger after hearing that.
Before leaving the parking lot, Josh pulled his phone out of his pocket and logged into the same social media website that he’d started to become sort of attached to. “Signed!” was all he wrote.
The year 2005 was a good year for the band. They spent those twelve months writing and recording several new songs as well as perfecting the ones that had originally been submitted to Simkin. Josh had agreed to allow his ballad chronicling his eating disorder to be put on the first album, set to be released in 2006. He’d had plenty of time to think about it, and the more time he had, the more he realized that he just couldn’t keep things a secret any longer. He had gotten help when he needed it and thought that maybe his words would be able to help someone else in a similar situation. In fact, he not only chose to use that track, but the entire theme of the album was, either obviously or subtly, about his own personal struggles. If he was going to put himself out there, he might as well get it over with all in one fell swoop.
When all was said and done, the first two singles from the album barely registered on the music charts, let alone made the band famous, but the one song that did do well was Josh’s sassy, sarcastic attempt to make fun of the music business. “Shake Tramp”, which he still maintained talked of his worries about selling out, ironically turned out to be the song that broke the band and gave the boys access to a world that they weren’t sure they would ever see.
Several cross-Canada tours, hundreds of concerts, whether grand scale or small intimate venues, and thousands of fans later, the boys of Marianas Trench were realizing that they were definitely on their way to achieving the dream. They were finally making money by doing something they loved. Their day jobs had long been left behind in pursuit of the musical careers that they had each hoped for. One thing none of the men could believe was that they were finally where they were. They had an official album under their belts and people liked it. People they didn’t have to give the CD to as Christmas stocking stuffers were actually listening to their music, and Jesus Christ did it feel good.
Matt snapped his fingers in front of Josh’s face several times, breaking the older man’s concentration on the phone he was holding in his free hand. “Man, you haven’t been paying attention at all over the last twenty minutes. You still with me here?” The guitar player raised his eyebrows while he waited for an answer.
Josh blinked and sat up, dropping his other arm back down onto the table and exposing the red mark his hand had left against his pale cheek. “What? Yeah, I’m here.” He smiled quickly and reached up to brush the newly dyed blue streaks of hair out of his eyes.
“What’re you thinkin’ about that’s got you so fucking out of touch today?” The brunet pulled his guitar from around his neck, set it in the stand beside him and pulled his chair in a little closer to the table. The two were alone that afternoon in Josh’s apartment casually working on writing some new songs, and Josh had been more easily distractible than usual all day.
“Music,” the singer said vaguely, setting his phone aside with a quick sideways glance.
Matt huffed and pulled his leg up to rest the heel of his boot on the rung of the chair under him. “You’re always thinking about music, man.”
“Yeah, dude, I know, but I think I have a really good idea for a song for the next album.”
It had been two years since the band’s first record “Fix Me” was released. Even though it never did very well in sales, 604 Records was, luckily enough, willing to stick with them and give them another chance to release a second album to the public. “If we really get to do this, it’s gonna have to be a fuckin’ masterpiece,” Josh had repeated to everyone who would listen multiple times.
“What’s the idea?” Matt relaxed back in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest, obviously hoping for some great plan.
“Here.” The older man turned his ragged and well-used teal coloured song notebook around to face Matt and slid it across the table to him. He watched as the brunet leaned forward again, running his finger slowly over the lyrics as he read them carefully.
Matt’s mouth slowly pulled up in a wide grin. “You think?” he asked, pushing the notebook back to Josh as the singer nodded, returning the smile.
“Yeah, we just won’t tell anyone what it’s really about. We’ll call it…uh...we’ll call it “Masterpiece Theatre: Track Number 10” for now, until we can come up with a real title,” Josh said, writing the temporary words across the top of the page and underlining them.
“The song is genius, man,” the brunet said laughing as he picked up his guitar and set it across his lap once more. “It’s perfect.”
“Yeah, just fuckin’ perfect.”