I’m playing rhythm on his old Gretch hollow body, he’s playing lead on a brand-new Martin. Watching his fingers on the frets is a miracle sometimes, so fast and clean. He’s such a clean player. Every note is deliberate, like a pre-awful Clapton. Cherie taps her foot, she drinks her drink, eyes closed. Bro does this jazzy-sounding octave run up the neck, higher and higher, and his face contorts till it’s nearly a grimace, then he takes it back down again and the pattern dissolves and the song is over. The last notes ring out and linger in the room. “I love that one,” Cherie says. Her eyes are still closed.
“To me those chords sounded like northern California,” he says, “that same sort of vibe, the coast, a place I’d never even been to at the time. So I called it ‘Big Sur.’ Ever heard of it? Me either. I only knew it from the title of a Kerouac book.”
I show him the chords to “I’m Only Sleeping,” the last song I actually bothered to sit down and figure out. We put on Revolver and play along but something about the bridge keeps throwing us so Bro gets down and kneels in front of the speaker, as close to the music as he can possibly get. He lifts the needle on the record player and backs it up, lifts the needle and backs it up. He reaches out and touches the speaker. “That’s good, Lennon,” he says, as if John Lennon were in the next chair. Then he picks up a guitar and plays the bridge perfectly. Then he shows it to me.
• • •
“THIS IS YOU.”
“What?”
“Listen.”
“Why? Who’s.”
“You. Listen.”
Lines form on my face and hands lines form from the ups and downs I’m in the middle without any plans I’m a boy and I’m a man I’m eighteen and I don’t know what I want.
“First of all, I’m seventeen. Second, who is this?”
“Alice Cooper.”
“Ooh I love Alice Cooper,” Cherie says.
“Well that’s saying a hell of a lot, since you also love Paul McCartney.”
“Fuck you, honey. Alice is the man.”
“Are you guys for real? What about that song he did for the Jason movie, Friday the 13th part fifty or whatever. That was some pretty rock-bottom shit.”
“Six. It was part six. Jason Lives. And that was all about a paycheck. This here, this is all about the rock. And hey, don’t judge. You’re washing dishes over there.”
“Not anymore. I told you. I quit. I’m free.”
Bro had been taking a swig when I said this and he spits beer in a big spray and chokes for a second and then starts laughing. He pounds his chest, takes another swig. “Sorry,” he says and then starts laughing again.
“What the fuck?” I say.
“Nothing. Sorry.”
Cherie looks over, grinning.
“You are,” he says, “you’re free.”
And it’s one of those things. A minute later we’re all laughing. I fall on the floor and grab at Cherie, who wipes at the tears running down her cheeks. Bro’s head is back and his mouth is wide open but he’s not even making any sound anymore. “I’m free,” I say again. We crack up some more. The record skips. We are living inside this laughter. It’s as big as the house, bigger. It’s so big I run outside into the quiet street.