A Song for Julia

Pathin turned toward me. “Go for it,” Serena said.
    So I started playing. Actually, it was a lot different. I’d spent most of the drive up from Washington, DC, in the back of the van, playing with some licks, then wrote lyrics after getting home from my dad’s Sunday night. The sound was more compressed, somehow, than the stuff I usually wrote. Still plenty of grunge, but it had kind of a catchy beat. The lyrics … well, the song was about the girl I’d met in Washington. Julia.
    I was about a third of the way, belting out the chorus, “Julia, where did you go?” and all three of them were staring at me, stunned expressions on their faces. I stopped right in the middle of a measure.
    “What?” I asked.
    “Don’t stop,” Serena said, waving her hands at me impatiently.
    “Yeah, keep going,” Pathin said.
    I looked back at them, feeling a little alarmed by their reaction, then backed up a few measures and picked up the song again.
    When I finished, the warehouse was dead silent.
    Finally, Pathin said, “That’s bloody brilliant.”
    Serena nodded her head quickly, a huge smile on her face, eyes shining.
    Mark said, “Frickin’ sell-out. It sounds like a pop song.”
    Pathin shook his head. “No … it’s brilliant. That may be the best song Crank’s ever written.”
    “Who the hell is Julia?” Serena asked.
    “No one,” I replied.
    She snorted and gave me a grin. “You’re so full of shit, Crank. But who cares? That song was amazing. We’re performing it Friday.”
    “It’s not done yet, I still haven’t even worked out…”
    “Then finish it. We’re doing it Friday night. Mark will be happy … we can replace one of the covers.”
    Mark looked smug.
    “I agree,” Pathin said. “But I’m also very curious who this mysterious Julia is.”
    “Dude, it’s just a song,” I said.
    Mark muttered, “I never thought we’d be playing Top 40 crap. But if we can get rid of one of the covers, I guess I’m okay with it. But you’re still a sell-out, Crank.”
    I gave him the finger.
    He muttered, “Shit monkey,” and sent the finger right back.
    Serena pointed at him and gave him the look. Yeah, that look. The one that made all of us feel like ten-year-olds caught in the cookie jar by our mothers. Mark shut up. Serena was awesome that way.
    “Can you play it through one more time?” she asked me. “I want to get the feel for it. Pathin, you caught the end? It needs some pretty powerful drums there.” Serena was in her element. Disorganized, crazy, sometimes inspired, she often acted as the band’s artistic director, if we had such a thing.
    “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve got it.”
    So I played through it again. And then a third time. On the fourth, Serena jumped in with a strong backup rhythm, and Pathin and Mark came in with the drums and bass, and suddenly it was a real song. And I loved it. It was the quickest and easiest I’d ever written a song before. And possibly the best.
    Even Mark looked excited by the time we did a run through. “I’ll admit,” he said. “It is powerful. Even if Crank is a complete asshat.”
    “Powerful is not the word,” Serena said, her voice droll. “Heart-wrenching. The girls are going to be ripping their clothes off for Crank.”
    I snorted and Mark said, “So what’s new about that?”
    “Knock it off, Mark,” I said.
    “I’ll knock it off when you stop bringing drunk groupies back here after our shows. I’m tired of having to listening to them giggling and thumping through my bedroom wall.”
    Then he did an imitation, thumping rhythmically against one of the wood benches with his foot while he cried out, “Oh! Oh! Crank! Oh!”
    “Shut up!” the rest of us yelled.
    Mark smirked. “Let’s get the rest of this set done.”
    “About time,” I muttered.
    The rest of our practice was uneventful, though it went smoother than typical. But that’s the way things went: up and down. Our shows were consistently solid, but in rehearsals, the ebb and flow of emotions, arguments and just life tended to impact all of us.
    After practice, Serena ordered a pizza, then went off to grab a shower. I collapsed, exhausted, onto another throwaway couch in our living room upstairs above the studio. It had once been a conference room or something for the warehouse. Since we’d moved in, Serena had decorated it with brightly colored drapes and shawls she’d brought from India. Mark turned on the television and found The Osbournes.