HI FRIEND 🎭
hiiiiii let's do some band au and go over five sentences. what da hell
Relief finally comes after eight days in the desert or however long Jesus was out there. In her ear, Alex’s voice: “And with that, you’re good to go.”
Through the glass, she can see movement — Rich slouched in his chair, giving her two thumbs up; Brady popping up from the ground, dusting himself off, and stepping up to the sound board. Izzy’s back, coming through the door with various sacks of food which Lola and Dodo fall on immediately.
Mahalia taps her watch as she drapes the headphones over the back of the mic stand. 9:34 pm. Thirteen hours in this goddamn studio and probably three or four to go. Doing live albums would make all of this go a lot faster but no, Brady loves single track fidelity and ‘bringing out the full sound.’ Well she’s gonna stop bringing herself out here one of these days; her leg’s fucking killing her, both stiff and wobbly from standing at the mic for too long and she’s getting the kind of tired that makes her not fun to be around, the tell tale beginnings of a headache rumbling at her ears.
John’s heading into the booth as she’s heading out, tossing his hoodie at her on the way. She catches it before it can smack her in the face.
“Bastard.”
He doesn’t respond, just grins — closed-lipped, mouth full of food — and lifts the headphones off the mic. She shrugs on the soft worn blend, still warm from the day on John’s shoulders, and flips the hood up. Smells like him too, flat radiator heat and a lingering final cigarette from three months ago. It’s a good arrangement they have; she gets cold in the green room and he gets hot in the booth.
“One, two, three, four…” His voice pops through the speakers as she beelines past the overflowing coffee table to the couch where Gale’s sat reading some philosopher who’s dead enough to be in marble on the back.
“Got you a quesadilla,” Gale says, “extra chicken. Guac’s in the bag.”
“I’m good,” she says, fighting a wince. Pain rips down her hip as she lowers herself to the firm velvet and flops to the right. The ache subsides once she adjusts, her head on Gale’s thigh, his hand coming to rest over her stomach in between the layers of John’s zip-up and her t-shirt like a paper weight, an anchor so she won’t fly away. She can finally fucking breathe, get the electricity out of her limbs that's been building since she got in the booth.
In for four, hold for two, out for six, hold for two.
She's bad at the long days, the static days, doing the same shit until it's all muscle memory, 'til her brain's off and her body's scraping by in low battery mode. Practice is the only option, unfortunately. “Coping strategies” and all the shit Dr. Gill assigns her. Box breathing is the only thing she does with any regularity but it helps, it does, when she can't self-isolate her way out of a situation and social immolation is ill-advised.
It’s relaxing enough that she’s dizzy, like a half-asleep child on a late night car ride, the radio distant, surrounding voices indistinguishable.
Gale’s thumb draws small circles, around and around, as he flips a page. “You need to eat.”
“Gimme an hour.” Her eyelids are already drooping; this conversation is a battle against the inevitable.
He huffs, checks his watch, and makes sure she’s looking at him when he agrees with a nod. “An hour, that’s it.”
John warms up with his part in Then The B Uptown, easy on his voice but full, buzzy in the speakers, especially when Alex clicks on the rest of their tracks and the chords lock, even the dissonance mellow.
Alex hums with approval into his mic. “We can start there.”
She floats away to the opening notes, her own bass line washing her into the dark.
