David Nickle - Monstrous Affections

“Point, there. What’d you talk about, Dave?”

“It’s a mystery.”

“Quit fucking around. We don’t have a lot of time here.”

Dave hadn’t been fucking around. Mystery is what it was. “Talked about a lot of things. Can’t say exactly.” Wasn’t good enough, and Dave knew it. He frowned and thought a moment. “Asked him if he was still using the valve trombone, or’d gone slide.” Which we all knew was a strange thing to ask, given Dave had met him the same time we did and had no idea what type horn he used to play. “Slide, he said. Same as always. He asked me…” Bong went to Dave. “Mmm. Asked me if I wanted it.”

“The trombone?”

“No. Something else. Didn’t say what. But something else.”

Bong went to Vincent, then Steve. Thunder came and went. Dave got up, came back with beer. Took the bong. We thought about that question: Did Dave want it? From that: Did we want it? Was it worth having? Rain started up.

“So who is he?” Vincent. “We never had a trombone back in the day. I remember that much.”

“Our music doesn’t lend itself to trombone.”

“You wouldn’t think.”

“And yet.”

We grew thoughtful. On the one hand, we remembered how it was: band class and bands didn’t mix. Dave had made that clear from Day One, as we hunched in the dull October light, greying our grey cafeteria lunches further. Dave wouldn’t even tolerate a lead singer — and if one of us pointed out Robert Plant by way of argument, well we could just fuck off. Steve and his axe, Steve and the microphone. Same thing. And for band class?

“Point of this is not formal training. Point is, you got to feel the music — that’s how Jimmy does it. That’s how we do it.” Plenty of trombonists in band class. And who needed them?

On the other hand…

“I helped him load his trombone into the trailer.” Dave, perplexed. “I know.”

“What do you want?”

“What?”

“Far as what the trombonist asked if you wanted it. What, exactly?”

Vincent.

Always got the Friday fish and chips. Wispy moustache over baby-smooth chin. That and the belly fat and the greasy black hair not quite straight inoculated him against the attention of the big-haired girls — Sue, Maryann, Sue’s friend… who?… the big-haired girls who followed us set to set, tried to keep up, talk about the way the music moved, finally reduced to regurgitating tag-lines from Creem critiques and just nodding, kneeling on the floor while Dave told them how truly full of shit they were, showed them what he meant on air guitar.

“I don’t know what I want.”

Dave, who’d stopped being such an asshole long back.

Steve cracked a beer. “Sure you do. You want the music. Always have.”

Dave thought he should tell the rest of us how full of shit we were on that count. But we looked at him that way we did. He nodded.

Rain like applause on the roof. Water splashed in the washroom. We all sat quiet, not wanting to upset the fish any more than it was. Figuring the storm would send him back inside soon anyhow, rainwater dribbling a line from spit valve back to the kitchen chair he’d occupied all day, before the door chimed.

“Speaking of the fish.”

“Trout.”

“Trout. You’re sure he thinks we’re too loud?”

“Asked us to keep it down.”

“Asked you to keep it down. Not like we heard anything.”

“You saying I made it up, Vince?”

“Not saying that at all. But I got to wonder: that fish tell you to keep it down the same way you knew to stop at the mall before we left town?”

“You see what he’s saying?”

“What we’re getting at?”

What we were getting at was this: perhaps Steve had heard directions from Vincent’s house to the south entrance of the mall as a faint whisper in his ear, in a language that he had not heard since the womb, or even prior that.

“I see.” Steve stepped into the washroom. Shut the door. Set his beer down on the sink. Looked down at the trout, which hung near the drain, still as death.

Steve, alone in the washroom. Sucked a deep breath. Looked at his hands, thicker now than then, white little lines along the creases… Thought about how they once held one of the big-hair girls — Sue’s friend, the one with the red hair and the freckles on her shoulders. Her name wouldn’t come to him. But her face — wide mouth, cheekbones sharp… eyes that looked at him, seemed to see him…

Not the one he’d married.

That one now: she never saw us — playing, we mean. Steve could barely summon her face; when he did, it was obliterated by hot lights, the smell of old beer and cigarettes. Steve took a long breath. Blinked. Thought:

I used to be…

Steve regarded the trout, lowered his finger to touch the surface of the water. Trout twitched its tail, swung suddenly around to back of tub. And she came to him.

Her.

A day ago, standing in the driveway, left foot jittering in its flip-flop, arms crossed, as Steve hitched the trailer to the back of the van. Hot summer wind blew piss-yellow air from the highway, coloured by the afternoon rush. Her brow creased; not angry, not exactly.

“We have to get on the road.”

Might have said more; but too much had been said already. And he knew it. She thought he smoked too much; thought this was a bad time to go off.

Night before: she boiled it down for him as they lay together.

“You’re disappearing.”

“Stare into the abyss,” he said softly, staring that night at the square of silver the street lamp made on the ceiling. Staring.

Listening.

Humming along.

“Don’t go,” she said. Fingers fluttered at his chest.

That day: She shook her head, threw up her hands. Went back inside.

This day: Trout splashed. Agitated, in clean bathwater.

Dying.

Rain hit on the roof. Wind blew across the open window like it was the top of a beer bottle. That was it: we kept ourselves quiet. “Dazed and Confused” was long done. Steve took a breath. Swallowed his beer in two big gulps.

There was a wide plastic bucket under the sink. Steve took the bucket, lowered it into the tub so it filled with water. Trout swam into it. Steve lifted it out with both arms.

“Trout didn’t mean be quiet.” Steve, on his way to the front door. “Meant what it said.”

Vincent: “Keep it down?”

“Keep what down?” Dave.

“Same thing trombonist asked you about. Not the music, either. More.” Steve, outside now. “But it’s too fuckin’ late.”

The rain soaked us fast under storm-black sky. Squinting, hand sheltering eyes, it was hard to see where the lake started.

We made for the dock, empty now. Walked out to the end of it. Dave had been right: should have taken fish back to the lake right away. Claw-footed bathtub was no place for a six-pound lake trout. Dave helped Steve lower the bucket to the water, dip it below the surface. Splashed. Trout jumped out, scales breaking surface in a broad arch. Lightning flashed, dazzlingly close. Trout corkscrewed deep into the black.

“Be free!” Vincent, arms up in the air. Steve, lowering himself to sit on the soaking dock. Dave, standing, half-finished beer in his right hand, held shoulder height; left hand, absently noodling the strings of his invisible axe; head bobbing to the rhythm of an inaudible drummer.

The rain was cold and hard but not unpleasant. Not on any of us. Vincent reminded us of the St. Patrick’s Day set, back at the Rook, that year. Dave wrapped tight in blue spandex culled from the ladies’ section of the Goodwill. Wailing out “Misty Mountain Hop” like we owned it. Steve smiled, blinked away the water running down his forehead, pasting thinning hair into his eyes. Looked out at the water, black stipple frosted with misted rain. He flipped over the bucket, started tapping. Vincent, pointing back at the house. Door wide open. Light spilling out. Three gentle strums across the worn strings on Dave’s acoustic, warming up for a run on “Black Mountain Side.”