the page, I am living for them. They give me strength. I don’t worry about what will happen when the inspiration stops, because as long as I have Her, it never will.
• • •
We are in the studio now, a tiny space in a squat, corrugated office park outside Chicago. It’s a by-the-hour kind of place, with egg cartons nailed to the walls, and a vending machine in the lounge that is never refilled (someone has written Why bother? over the Sunkist button). The matted carpet has cigarette burns, and the recording booth reeks like old coffee and powdered creamer. “The Bill W. smell” is what they call it.
• • •
I am sitting on the curb outside the studio now, watching cars idle at the stoplight. Their mufflers rattle, spitting out blue clouds of exhaust. Their wheel wells are caked with salt from the street. The drivers are wearing hats and scarves behind the wheel, smoking with the windows cracked. Someone is listening to the Bears game on the radio. Across the street in the 7-Eleven, the guy behind the corner is reading a magazine. I am pushing around puddles of slush with my sneakers, watching the tips get soaked, waiting for Her to call.
The snow is falling again, tiny flakes that flutter from the gray skies, land on the ground, and quickly disappear. I watch them stick to the arm of my coat, then blur away into nothing more than dark spots. Wet wool. I feel the flakes land on the back of my neck, melting, sliding down under my collar. I drop my feet squarely in an oily puddle, feel the icy slush ooze into the soles of my shoes. My socks get heavy with the dirty water. An old man emerges from an office across the parking lot, glances at me for a second as he lights up a cigarette, his hand shielding the flame from the falling snow. He pulls his coat tight and looks up at the sky, eyes squinting, then brings his head level with mine. We both stare at each other across the icy asphalt, me with my feet still in the middle of a puddle. A part of me thinks he’s jealous.
The light changes again, and more cars huddle at the intersection, shivering, making the air heavy with exhaust. Piles of snow are on the sidewalk, the peaks black with dirt. The breath is steaming from my mouth, the snowflakes collect on my eyelashes. I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket, and I fish it out. It’s Her. I answer it with “My feet are soaked!” and she laughs. I hop up out of the puddle, duck back under the awning. I listen to Her voice and watch the old man toss his cigarette onto the ground, coughing and spitting phlegm onto the ice. She’s talking about Her exams as the cars rumble away from the light. The snow is starting to fall heavier and faster. It’s beautiful. All of it. Everything is happening.
• • •
We finished the record just before Christmas, and right after, we shot the cover.
6
We have a new drummer now, a masher from Milwaukee. He’s got more tattoos than the rest of us put together, is a militant, straight-edge vegan, and is always ready to fight because of that. He has a shock of red hair, and when he gets going behind the kit, he reminds us all of Animal, which is what we start calling him. Needless to say, our shows get a little more interesting.
• • •
Finally a major label has taken notice. We get a little bit of money from the deal, start to realize that, hey, maybe we really can make a living at this, so we decide to say good-bye to our ordinary lives once and for all. I drop out of Columbia one semester short of graduation. My parents are pissed. I’m not. I tell them someday they’ll give me an honorary doctorate from the place, or at least spot me the twelve credits I need for my diploma. Those kinds of details seem trivial when your life is opening up, when the road is unfurling before you, when the future is yours for the taking.
There are, of course, roadblocks. When I tell Her that I’m leaving Columbia, she responds with silence. Then she asks, “But you’re coming back, right?” I tell Her probably not, that the band is starting to do well and I was never really into political science