The van comes to a stop.
“Here we are,” says Akim.
Here we are, indeed. Harlock’s Rockpile, the rock bar where the Featherless Bipeds were born, and where, if the fates allow, we will be born again.
I walk towards the crumbling yellow-brick building with my snare drum tucked under one arm, followed by Akim, whose well-traveled Stratocaster hangs inside its case at the end of his thick fingers. Tristan follows us, recording the occasion as always with his video camera.
Together, the three of us step though the entrance marked “Stage Door — Performers Only”.
Mr. Johnson, the owner of the bar, greets us at the door.
“Well, if it isn’t the famous Featherless Bipeds,” he laughs. “What comes around goes around, eh? Glad you didn’t forget who discovered you!”
“We wouldn’t have missed this for anything!” Tristan says.
“Well, feel free to blow the roof off the place tonight,” he says, with a slight melancholy tinge in his otherwise cheerful voice, “It won’t matter tomorrow anyway.”
After tonight, Harlock’s Rockpile will close forever, and we’ve been invited to play as part of the tavern’s last hurrah. The crumbling building has been appropriated by the city to build a parking garage, and the wrecking ball will arrive next week. Mr.
Johnson has decided not to open another bar, and is going to retire to Florida. He’s taking his long-time waitress Suzy with him.
This will be the first time that the Featherless Bipeds have played together in months, and of course a lot has happened since our last show. We’ve lost our manager, our producer, and our recording contract, so we’re looking at tonight’s gig as the band’s rebirth. Zoe will be arriving from Ireland today, and she’s taking a cab directly from the airport so she’ll arrive in time for the show. I can’t wait to see her. I’ve got something planned.
“Hey, Dak,” Mr. Johnson says to me, “You haven’t changed a bit! Still way too clean-cut for a rock ‘n’ roller.”
Since helping Lola catch the Downtown Rapist, I’ve been able to shave, get a haircut, and wear my usual clothes. Helping to put a rapist in jail seems to have outweighed jilting Janice Starr on the media’s good guy/bad guy scale, so I’ve been able to stay in my own house again, without having to sneak around reporters and TV vans. When they covered the story, the papers and TV news shows were even kind enough to show file photos of me playing with the band, rather than in my filthy disguise as a street person.
Two disc jockeys banter on the radio playing behind the bar:
The first DJ says: “And this just in — Big Plastic Records producer Billy VandenHammer, known throughout the music world as The Purple Messiah, was arrested late yesterday for fraud and tax evasion!”
The second DJ says: “Probably to make up for all the money he lost when Janice Starr got whacked out on cocaine and attacked those cops, eh? Perhaps the fastest descent from number one on the charts to the clearance bin in music history!”
DJ 1: “Of course that was after her live performance lip-synching scandal, right? Can you say ‘Milli Vanilli’?”
DJ 2: “And then there’s that disc jockey in Vancouver who stripped away all the electronic effects from one of her recordings and revealed just how awful her singing really is — she made Linda McCartney sound like K.D. Lang!”
DJ 1: “My singing in the shower in the morning sounds better than that!”
DJ 2: “Although I’ll bet Janice Starr used to look pretty good in the shower before she started snorting coke and scrapping with the police!”
DJ 1: “Rumour has it that she and manager boyfriend J.P. Tanner have split up. Seems Tanner is now managing a hot new singing sensation called Brandy K! She’s only seventeen, though, so J.P. had better not start mixing business with pleasure, or he’ll be sharing a cell with Billy VandenHammer!”
DJ 2: “Anyway, here’s some cute, lightweight pop from Janice Starr’s MUCH cuter days, a song called ‘Love is Number One’!
There is a race between Akim, Tristan and I to turn the radio off. I punch the button so hard, I nearly knock the radio off the shelf.
We file out to the van again to start carrying in our equipment. It’s been a while since we’ve set up our own gear, and my muscles tingle from lifting all the weight. This used to be my least favourite part of being in a band, but now assembling our instruments and amplification feels wholesome and organic.
“I hope Zoe gets here soon,” I say.
“You sound nervous, Dak. You never sound nervous,” Tristan chatters. “Don’t sound nervous. It makes me nervous!”
I fasten the drums to their stands. “Think anybody will show up to see us tonight?”
“Months are like years in the music business,” Akim says ominously.
“Lighten up, Akim,” Tristan says. “We’re still the same guys with the same hands. We’ll rock this joint just like we did the first time.”
“I hope we play better that that,”Akim says. “Let’s get our sound check done, and drive into the city to Jafo’s for one of those big-ass burgers.”
“For old time’s sake?” Tristan says.
“Nope, I just want a Jafo’s burger because they’re good,” Akim says. “Nostalgia is for has-beens. ”
When we return to Harlock’s from Jafo’s a few hours later, the parking lot is already half-filled with cars.
“I told you people would come,” Tristan says.
“They might just be here to say goodbye to the bar,” Akim says, “I doubt they give a crap about the band.”
As we walk inside, we’re surrounded by that familiar sound of buzzing of voices, clinking glasses and bottles, pool balls clacking together, the radio tuned to the local rock station. There are smells of stale spilled beer, cigarettes, fried food, sweat. Compared to the sterile environment of the recording studio, Harlock’s radiates life.
“Holy crap!” Akim says, striding over to an elderly man who sits at a table directly in front of a PA speaker. He’s right to do something — the old guy will get his face blown off sitting that close to the stage! Akim shakes hands with him, talks for a few minutes, then joins us again by the bar’s entrance.
“Didn’t you convince him to move away from the speaker?” I ask.
“Oh, no, that’s my former landlord. He’s deaf, remember? He wants to sit close to the speakers so he can feel the vibrations. He says he misses the music.”
“Does he know we named our second album after his garage?” Tristan asks.
“He knows. He raised the rent.”
Veronica and Sung Li meet us at the door.
“Great crowd, eh?” Sung Li says, pulling herself close to Akim.
“Not bad,” he admits.
“And they’re still coming in,” Veronica says, pausing to nibble Tristan’s ear. Tristan gets that soft-focus expression as if his soul is being tugged toward heaven. He snaps out of it suddenly, though, his eyes bulging, jaw dropped open.
“Dad?” he yelps.
A grey-haired man with tired-looking eyes is making his way toward us, looking sullenly at Tristan. He stands in front of his son, saying nothing.
“Jesus, Dad, I haven’t seen you for . . . ” Tristan says. “This is my girlfriend Veronica.”
“Girlfriend, eh?” are the first words Tristan’s dad says to him in over ten years.
Held firm in his right hand is the notorious Beatle Bass. He holds it out to Tristan. “You’ve earned this,” he says.
Tristan holds the old instrument in both hands, and then sets it gently on the stage. He hugs his father. Tristan’s dad cries.
Across the room, seated around one of the big, graffiti-covered tables that are the bar’s trademark, are a whole contingent of people who have made the trip from Faireville. Jo, the waitress from the Faireville Times Café is there, along with a couple of my high school teachers. Quentin Alvinstock is talking in his usual animated way, probably describing to Jo how he taught me everything about writing lyrics in his English Composition class. My sister Charlotte is laughing with the guy who owns Sammy’s Souvlaki Hut. J.D., the proprietor of J.D.’s Gas-O-Rama and my former summertime employer, gives me a thumbs-up. My mom and dad are here, too.
As I make way to greet them, I’m intercepted by a man with a wild beard and mass of thick hair highlighted with multi-coloured paint flecks. It’s Sebastian, the half-crazed abstract artist from that back-alley store where I once bought painting supplies for Mom. Sebastian’s carries a huge canvas blasted with various shades of blue, and the print of a human face in one corner. I recognize the painting — “Whalemanpassion”.
“Hey!” Sebastian yelps, “You said you would come back and buy one of my paintings when you got famous! Well, you’re famous now, and I haven’t seen you yet!”
“Has the price come down at all?” I ask.
“Nope. Still one hundred thousand dollars,” he says. “But listen. You can use it on your next CD cover for free. Good advertising for me, no?”
The wild blue scramble actually would make a pretty cool CD cover.
“I’ll be in touch, Sebastian,” I tell him, and I move on.
I take a couple more steps towards the Faireville table when two rotund, middle-aged men jump out in front of me. One is dressed like a Hollywood cowboy, the other like an old hippie. It’s Ray and Jay.
“What are you guys doing here?” I ask. “You know that, um, incident at the Superstar Bar was not our fault.”
“Hell no, boy!” Cowboy Ray grunts, “We ain’t here to sue ya, or anything like that!”
“That night you guys played at the Superstar Bar has become local legend,” Jay says. “Everybody has a story about the night the Featherless Bipeds came to town!”
“We have pictures and posters of you guys all over the bar,” Ray says, clapping me on the back. “Everybody’s seen you on TV, and nobody on TV ever comes to Theodore. You guys’re like local heroes around our parts.”
“We rented a bus!” Jay says, gesturing toward a table in the back, which is surrounded by an assortment of Pool Table Pec Flexers, Dance Floor Enigmas, and even a couple of Barstool Critics. I hardly recognize the Bull Man at first, since he’s respectably dressed and clean-shaven. He sits with his arm around the waist of the Elton John fan, whom I see still favours velvet jumpsuits.
I scan the rest of the room, and pick out other nameless faces I remember vaguely from other gigs we played at the Triple R and the Twelve Tribes. A couple of Jimmy T’s girlfriends from V.O.S. are here as well, now just barely old enough to legally be in a bar. I can’t imagine Mr. Johnson did anything more than local advertising for this gig, but the word got around somehow.
At last I make it across the room to where my mom and dad are standing. I hug Mom, and shake hands awkwardly with my dad.
“So,” I say, “did you remember to bring it?”
My mother smiles and slips a small box into my hand.
“I’ve brought something to mark the occasion,” she says and holds up a painting of the Featherless Bipeds playing live at Massey Hall. “I downloaded a picture from a fan site on the internet, so it’s only as good as the source material.”
But Mom’s painting captures much more of our band than any grainy bootleg photograph could. The brushstrokes make it look as if my arms are in motion, that Tristan is swaying back and forth like he always does when he plays, that Akim’s leg muscles are tensed for one of his trademark leaps into the air at the beginning of a solo. But the real sign of Mom’s artistic gifts is that Zoe, who always stands very still on stage, somehow radiates that warm, mysterious charisma, even rendered in acrylic paint.
“You’re a true artist, Mom,” I tell her.
I look at my watch. Where is Zoe, anyway? She should be here by now, even if her flight was delayed.
Mom nudges Dad.
“Show him, Arthur.”
“Awwww,” Dad moans, “it’s Dak’s night, Jessica. I don’t want to steal his thunder. I’ll show him later.”
“Show him now,” Mom says.
Dad removes a book from his back pocket, and hands it to me. The Great Embrace, by Arthur Sifter.
“The first copies were printed this week,” Dad says.
“Dad, that’s amazing, I’m so . . . ”
My father loudly clears his throat. Compliments fluster him.
“Didn’t want you to have pulled that old manuscript out for nothing,” he says.
“Hey!” cries a voice from across the room, “Aren’t you that crime fighter guy?”
It’s Lola.
“I’ll be back,” I tell my parents, and I go to where Lola is standing in the ever-thickening crowd.
Lola has undergone another transformation. She’s dressed in a sharp navy blue business suit, and her hair is cut stylishly short, like a politician’s. Gathered around her are several other women, similarly dressed and coifed. I notice they’ve all got matching lapel pins — a gold exclamation mark superimposed over a rainbow. I think I recognize the symbol from TV.
“Hey, Dak,” Lola says. “Good to see you again. I’m here on behalf of the Rainbow Action Alliance.”
“I’m guessing that’s not the name of your new band,” I quip.
“No,” she says. “We’re an organization that lobbies at the federal level for the rights of marginalized and minority women.”
“Wow,” I exclaim, “that’s a broad mandate!”
“Is that supposed to be a joke?” one of Lola’s compatriots demands. “Referring women as broads?”
A dark feeling of déjà vu rushes through me, but Lola waves her hand in the air, saying, “Dak’s never funny. He doesn’t mean it that way. Dak is the guy who helped me catch the Downtown Rapist.”
“Ohhhhhhhhhh!” the woman says.
Now I think I can hear a choir of angels singing Halleluiah in the background.
“It looks like you got a new job,” I say to Lola.
“Yeah,” she whispers, “I’m vice president of media and advertising. It’s a good gig.”
I guess apprehending the Downtown Rapist didn’t hurt Lola’s profile as a fighter of sexism and racism.
“We’ve got a proposition for you, Dak,” Lola says. “We’d like to use your song ‘Paint’ in some of the TV and radio ads promoting our cause. The song fits in well with the message we’re trying to send, and it would give the band some good publicity, too.”
“Sure, you can use the song.”
“Great!” Lola says, “I’ll have our people contact your people.”
“Okay,” I say, even though I’m not sure who ‘my people’ are at the moment, since Jimmy T is no longer our manager and we’ve been dumped by Big Plastic Records. Then I have a flash of inspiration. “Hey, Lola! Do you want to come up on stage and sing ‘Paint’? Just like the old days?”
“No, no,” Lola says. “Those days are behind me, now. I’ve got my priorities straight.”
“Come on, Lola. One song.”
Her fellow lobbyists urge her on. “Do it, Lola!” “Come on, Lola!”
“Maybe,” she says, “we’ll see.”
To change the subject, Lola points at a couple who have just entered the room.
“Hey,” she says, “is that Zoe’s mother and father?”
She’s never met them, but from a previous incident that we don’t talk about any more, she knows that Zoe’s dad is from Pakistan, and that her mom is Irish-Italian.
“Hi, Dak,” Zoe’s mom says, “is Zoe here?”
“No,” I tell her. “Not yet. Have you heard from her?”
“Her plane was supposed to land four hours ago,” Zoe’s father says. “She should be here by now.”
“You don’t suppose she changed her mind about . . . ” her mother worries.
“Shhhhhhhh!” Zoe’s father hushes his wife.
I don’t know what to say. Zoe has to be here tonight. Everything depends on it.
“Hey!” Lola says to Zoe’s dad, her eyes twinkling, “Did you know that Dak can do a perfect impression of you, Mr. Perry?”
“Oh, really,” he says.
Thankfully, somewhere near the back of the bar, people begin tapping their beer bottles rhythmically on the tabletop, chanting “Bipeds! Bipeds!” More people join in, and the chant gets louder and louder, rolling through the room like a wave.
“Duty calls!” I say, and I make a hasty retreat.
Tristan, Akim and I wander out onto the stage, and the room reverberates with cheering voices. I look at my watch again.
“I guess we’ll have to play the first set without Zoe,” I say.
Akim begins playing the chunky opening chords to “Paint”, and I announce, “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the closing night festivities at Harlock’s Rockpile! We’re the Featherless Bipeds, and we’ve got a special treat for you tonight. Opening tonight’s show is our first lead vocalist, Lola Young!”
Lola tosses her suit jacket on a table and takes her position at centre stage. People scream and whistle. She unleashes her wildcat blues snarl, her blouse untucked, her businesswoman haircut now flying around wildly. Lola’s still got it.
At the end of the song, I scan the room. Still no Zoe.
“Sing a few more!” Tristan begs.
Lola sings a few more. It’s as if we’re playing at the Deaf Man’s Garage again, like nothing ever changed. Before long, though, we’ve run out of original songs to which Lola knows the words.
“Thanks a lot!” Lola cries out to the enthusiastic audience. “You’re all beautiful people! The band will be back after a short break, and then the real show will begin!”
I glance around the room for the hundredth time. Still no Zoe.
We eventually have no choice but to play our second set without Zoe as well. We pick the songs from our repertoire that will be hurt the least by the lack of her voice, but, let’s face it, every one of our songs sounds better with Zoe singing the lyrics. Nevertheless, Tristan and I hold forth on vocals as best we can, and the crowd applauds each tune.
Where could she be? What if she’s been in an accident? Or what if she’s decided not to come back at all? I don’t know what I’ll do.
As I wade into the crowd at the end of our second set, a young woman with long red hair and piercing green eyes stops me.
“Hi, Dak,” she says, “you don’t remember me, do you?”
“Did we meet at one of the awards shows?”
She shakes her head. “My name’s Bernice Janes. A few years ago you helped me out when I got hurt during that skinhead riot down by the old band shell. I read in the news later that you got hurt pretty badly yourself. I never did thank you properly, but I’ve always meant to.”
She embraces me tightly.
“Hey, it was my pleasure, Bernice,” I say, when she finally lets me go.
She straightens.
“Well, here’s the funny part. That summer I graduated from high school, and I got a job as a receptionist at this underground record company called Superior Records.”
“The Superior Records?”
“I guess everyone knows our overnight success story, eh? Anyway, I meant to go away to university, but The Nerve signed with us, and of course everything took off from there. I’m the head of the Artist Relations Division now.”
“Wow.”
“Listen, I know about your troubles with Big Plastic Records, so I was wondering if you would be interested in signing on with us for your next album?”
I’m speechless.
“As Head of Artist Relations,” she says, “I promise I won’t get you stabbed again.”
The crowd is clamoring for the third set to begin.
“Okay, Bernice,” I say, “We’ll talk.”
“By the way,” she says, “I love Zoe Perry’s voice. She’s still in the band, right?”
“I think so,” is all I can say.
“Should we wait for Zoe before we start the third set?” Tristan asks.
I shake my head.
“I don’t think she’s coming.”
“Are we still going to do the final set the way you planned it?” Akim asks.
“Might as well,” I shrug.
Tristan and Akim take their places on the stage, and I step up to the mike at centre stage.
“This is the first original song we ever played in front of an audience, and we played it right here at Harlock’s,” I say. The crowd erupts as Akim and Tristan start playing the introduction to “Invitation”.
When the cheering fades, I continue.
“I wrote this back in high school for a girl I knew . . . ”
Just then, the door to the parking lot swings open, and Zoe runs into the bar, looking rather frazzled.
“ . . . and the girl’s name was Zoe Perry,” I say, a smile breaking across my face. I extend my hand in her direction, and everybody in Harlock’s screams, whistles, and cheers, the noise swallowing the music that flows from the speakers. She looks dazed for a moment, then she smiles that tight-lipped smile of hers and takes a little bow. The crowd parts as she moves toward the stage. Akim and Tristan continue playing the song’s opening riff as I meet her at stage right. The roar of the crowd swirls around us, then subsides to almost silence as we kiss.
“Sorry I’m late,” she says to me. “I missed my flight. I had to go back for something at the hotel.”
She reaches into her coat pocket, removes a silver ring. On the ring, two hands hold a crowned heart.
“It’s a Claddagh,” she says, “an Irish engagement ring. You wear it with the heart facing out if you’re available, and facing in if your heart belongs to someone.”
She looks me in the eyes and places the ring in the palm of my hand.
“It matches mine,” she says, holding up her left hand to show me. The heart on her Claddagh faces in.
I slip the ring onto my finger. It fits perfectly.
I reach into my front pocket and open the small box my mother brought for me.
“This is for you,” I say. “It’s my grandmother’s engagement ring. She wanted me to save it until I found the right woman. It’s been yours for a long time.”
Zoe slides the ring on to her slender finger, and we kiss. Then, like a bubble around us has just burst, I hear the crowd cheering now, and Akim and Tristan are still playing. I had forgotten about everyone else for a moment.
“Want to sing a song with me?” I ask her.
“I do,” she says.
I take my place behind the drums. Zoe removes the microphone from its stand, and stands beside me. Our voices harmonize like one as we sing:
You tell me
You grew up in a town
Where smiles disguised intentions
You tell me
You were brought up in a house
Where dreams were never mentioned
You imply
you can’t distinguish
Truth from invention
It seems that we grew up together
It seems that we’re from different places
Same town, same house, same run-around
Same problems, different cases
What we hear is more than just our own voices echoing back at us. Nearly everyone in the audience is singing along with us. My parents, who are standing next to Zoe’s parents, are singing. Veronica, Sung Li, Tristan’s dad, Bernice, Lola and her entourage, the Faireville contingent, Ray and Jay, the Bull Man and the Velvet Woman, the Flexers, the Enigmas and the Barstool Critics — all of them know the words. Everyone in Harlock’s sways to the rhythm and sings along.
This is an open invitation
to come as you are
no need to dress up or down
no need to make a reservation
to dance without light
to drink all the night
from the shadows
We can tango through
this rainy syncopation
with heartbeats as strong and steady
as ritual drums
We stop playing our instruments, and Akim, Tristan, Zoe and I walk to the foot of the stage to absorb the sweet sound of a hundred voices singing our own song to us.
This is your invitation
To come
This is your invitation
To come
I take Zoe’s hand, and we both squeeze tightly.
This is your invitation
To come