You, Me and Us. Read online

  “This is him, is it?” she said.

  “Jimmy Rowland, this is Charlie Clarke.” You said as you pointed to each of us in turn. I reached my hand out towards Charlie.

  “Charmed.” I said.

  “Sorry I don’t do handshakes. Do you know how many people don’t wash their hands after they use the toilet?” she said keeping her hands clamped firmly to her sides. I could tell already we would be the best of friends.

  “Well the 3 guys I jacked off earlier today didn’t. But to be fair I asked them not to.” I replied taking a drag of my smoke.

  You laughed softly but Charlie continued to glare at me. I took your laugh to mean you were on my side now and I took advantage of it by pulling out my cigarette packet, pushing one out and directing it your way.

  “Thanks.” You said. I looked at Charlie and moved the packet towards her. She looked down at my extended hand and raised her eyebrows.

  “No thanks, I don’t smoke.”

  “Shocker.”

  Another laugh from you, I’d taken that as Jimmy 2 Charlie 0 but I didn’t keep score. Well not in a contest which was that much of a landslide. I’d have lost count.

  “Erin I’m going in, I’ll find us a good space to sit.” Charlie said to you, she took a step between us and turned to me as she made her way inside. “Nice to meet you Jimmy, good luck.”

  “Thanks, trust me I’ll need it.”

  And with a nod she left us alone. I looked your way once more, into those deep green eyes.

  “She’s nice.”

  “You need to get to know her. She really is.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” I paused for a minute to let our eyes meet purposely. “So, you’ve been talking about me?”

  “What?” you said with mock confusion.

  “Charlie, when you two got here, said ‘this is him’, as in ‘this is the guy you haven’t stopped talking about for ten days.’”

  I stopped to try and read your reaction, was that a flash of red I spotted?

  “Not even.” You kept a straight face.

  “I wasn’t finished, she said ‘this is him’, as in ‘this is the guy you haven’t stopped talking about for ten days and strumming yourself to for eight?”

  I raised my eyebrows and smiled to ensure you knew I was just pushing my luck.

  “Yeah, can’t stop myself. So, what do you have planned for tonight?”

  “Honestly, barely anything.” I said as I stubbed out my cigarette. “So, we’ll be taking requests, think of something!”

  You smiled and looked up for a moment.

  “Erm, you can’t just put me on the spot! When do you need it by?”

  I looked at my phone.

  “We go on in three minutes.”

  “What? And you don’t know what you’re doing?”

  “Welcome to my world.” I lifted my arms out in front of me like Christ The Redeemer. “You’re gunna love it.”

  You laughed again. 3-0. I pushed the door open wide enough for us both to get in.

  “Come on, my public awaits.” I beckoned you inside.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, Who’s That Band?” Joe yelled into the microphone and he pointed our way. Unfortunately, there were no wings for us to wait in at Ronnie’s so instead we were hiding to the left of the dance floor, squished up against the dressing room door, in an alcove.

  Ryan jumped out first raising his guitar to the crowd who were clapping and giving us a half-hearted cheer, Tom followed him with his keyboard. I let them both take a couple more steps towards the stage, well, all four inches of the raised dance floor, and looked around the room one more time. I spotted you stood right at the front of the stage smiling and clapping; Charlie was holding a straw up between her thumb and forefinger screwing her eyes up as she inspected it. Shit, my stomach was really going now. Fuck it here we go, I jogged behind them onto the stage just as Tom sat down and plugged his keys in.

  The view was different when I got front and centre, and as it changed so did I. There’s something special about performing, not in the wanky theatre student sense, but in the fucking real grab-you-by-the-balls thrill of the entire room looking at you sense. For some reason being up there changed me, I didn’t even feel fat. I felt like everything that is real and good inside me exploded the second my fingers connected with that mic.

  “What up Ronnie’s?!” cheers came back at me. “We are Who’s That Band, and welcome to ‘all 90s, all the time!’”

  A bit more clapping and cheering came from the crowd, so I took the opportunity to pause for a moment to rock back on my heel and look around at everyone. For some reason, you always forget what it looks like from the stage when you’re not there, so I always tried to take a mental snapshot when I was. I let my eyes linger on you at the front of the stage for a moment, you looked up at me, I panicked and stared right into the spotlight.

  “Now obviously most us were children in the nineties, so we’re going to start tonight with something kids love. Gary Glitter!” an ‘oooo’ and a small laugh spread around the crowd, and I’m pretty sure I heard Charlie ‘tut’. “Just kidding, let’s see if you remember this one, sing with me if you do.”

  Ryan thrust his hand downwards on his guitar causing it to screech out the opening note and Tom came in a second late with a thudding beat to back him up. I let the tune kick in and looked around, I saw eyes light up and people nudge each other in recognition of the theme. I stepped up to the mic. With my left hand, I grabbed the it and tilted the full stand down towards my lips just in time for them to curl around the opening lyrics to the Pokémon theme.

  Three songs later I felt alive. Truly alive, the whole room was hanging on my every word. I was walking, no strutting, around the stage with every ounce of me exuding blatant arrogance. I was also glad that I’d remembered to wear my classic gig outfit of black jeans and a black t-shirt, because 1. It’s slimming (although maybe a huge black bed sheet in front of me would’ve been better for that), and 2. it stopped my sweat patches from showing. Which was a Godsend, as I was sweating like Joseph Fritzel on MTV Cribs.

  “Thank you, thank you very much.” I said as I took a second to wipe my head with the stage towel. “That was Roll With It. And that is exactly what we’re doing now because we have pretty much run out of songs and we’ve got fifteen minutes left. So, any requests?”

  I pulled the mic away from my face and looked out to the crowd. Everyone was quiet. Classic audience. I decided to pull an old one out the bag.

  “You do all know this isn’t T.V. right? I can see you.”

  A small laugh came from the room, and I couldn’t help but glance your way and noticed you’d joined in. Brilliant.

  “Come on anything will do as long as it’s from the nineties.” I continued.

  A voice came from the back of the room.

  “Twist and Shout!” they shouted.

  I turned around to Tom sat behind his keys, he’d been taking a swig from a bottle of beer and spat a little out as he laughed. I span back to the audience who were laughing at the suggestion.

  “I said nineties!” I smiled to myself. “Ah fuck it, who wants to hear some Beatles?”

  A bit of a cheer from them and we were in. Tom didn’t need any second invitation as he played the three opening (and pretty much only) notes. Ryan followed with some soft strings and let the pace quicken. I smiled and let my mouth rip open embodying Matthew Broderick in Times Square.

  We winged it through to our final song, the World Cup was just under three weeks away so we finished up with the Lightening Seeds. I let the crowd take the final chorus and as they chanted the chorus over and over again. I shouted over the top of them;

  “Thank you, Ronnie’s! We’ve been Who’s That Band, you’ve been okay, see you later!”

  I bounced off the stage full of beans and flew straight into the dressing room to put a clean black t-shirt on and drag a towel all over my rolls of fat. Rock and roll eh?

 
; Joe was wiping down the bar and kept looking our way in a futile attempt at getting us to leave. He’d called last orders fifteen minutes ago which seemed a strange thing to do considering besides him, we were the only other people in the bar. The bell pretty much meant, ‘you work here you loser, so fuck off and go somewhere else.’ But I was just enjoying the night too much. It was nearing midnight and we were sat in what’s known as the ‘comfy seats’, which were actually just the hard pleather couches up against the back wall and were anything but comfy. You were leant back with your legs crossed and your right arm draped across the arm of the couch; I was hunched over leaning towards you, my hands clasped around my beer.

  “So, Three Lions was really your favourite?” I asked.

  “Yes! Why is that so hard to believe?”

  “No reason! It’s a good song but we played Beatles and Oasis tonight. And it’s a football song…”

  “Meaning?”

  “I didn’t know you were into football?”

  “Oh, because I’m a girl?”

  “No because earlier when the guys were still here Tom said he can’t wait for the World Cup to start and you asked who United were playing.”

  “Shut up!” you shouted as you shoved me away. “I told you, I didn’t hear him properly!”

  “Ha, ha okay I’m only playing, don’t hit me I’m brittle.” I pulled my arms up in the classic defence position and leant away hoping you’d lean towards me and give me another push. I could feel something between us every time our limbs touched. Unfortunately, you leant away and began to stand up. “God, I say you can’t punch me once and now you’re leaving?”

  “I’m not leaving I just need the loo, all these free drinks are going down too well.”

  “Yes, that was the plan, the free drinks go down well which means, well, you also go down well.”

  “You wish Rowland.” You said.

  You then stood up and walked across the dance floor, avoiding the mic, and headed into the bathroom.

  The second the bathroom door shut behind you Joe came storming over. His ginger hair was reflecting the spotlights in the ceiling which meant as he walked he looked like a beacon on a runway. A beacon growing ever closer to me.

  “Look mate, will you fuck off, it’s a Wednesday night we were supposed to shut up five minutes ago.” Joe glared down at me.

  “Oh, come on mate, look you go just leave me the keys?”

  Joe contemplated that for a minute. His eyes narrowed as he attempted to come to some sort of answer. He sighed and shoved his hand into his jeans pocket.

  “Here.” He threw the keys my way and I caught them with my right hand. “No spirits, half price drinks, be out of here no later than one and leave the money and the empties on the side.”

  “Yes sir.” I said with a salute.

  Joe smiled and turned back towards the bar, as he walked across the room he began to call more rules out.

  “No smoking inside, I saw you in the fucking dressing room you can scrub the walls and carpets on Friday.” He ducked behind the bar and bent his knees to collect his things. At that exact moment, you came back out the bathroom but Joe didn’t notice. “And, most important, no shagging on the comfy seats, they stain and it’s a fucking nightmare to clean off, did I ever tell you about that time I hooked up with that Thai bird over there and she- “at this point Joe stood up and saw you had re-joined us. He froze on the spot and his lips clamped together.

  “No please, don’t stop on my accord.” You said looking at Joe, holding his gaze so he didn’t know if you were joking or not.

  “Erm, well she, you know I can’t really remember.” Joe fidgeted on the spot. He swung his backpack over his shoulder and turned towards the fire exit. “Have fun you two, Jim remember the rules.” He nodded my way. “Nice to meet you Erin.”

  “Same.” You chanted back at him with a smile and a wave.

  He waved at us both and scampered out of the fire exit, slamming it shut as he went. I pulled out a cigarette and stood up.

  “Vodka?” I lit up.

  “Please.”

  “So, Joe has left me with strict instructions to be out of here within the hour, so we best make it count eh?” I walked towards the bar, at the same time you were walking back towards our couch and we almost had to squeeze together to get past one another. For once my fatness seemed to help me rather than hinder me in the pursuit of intimacy. I paused for a moment and made eye contact when we were level.

  “Large one?” you said.

  “I’m afraid not,” I looked down towards below my belt.

  “Shame.”

  We looked into each other’s eyes. Even though I had been giving all the big talk I was still nervous about these moments. I bottled it and ducked away from you to get behind the bar. You didn’t seem to notice, you smiled and sat back down. I grabbed two short glasses from under the bar and stuck them under the vodka optics, shoving them upwards twice. Two drops of ice and a dash of lemonade later I was waltzing back your way.

  “So, you enjoyed yourself tonight?” I re-joined you at the table and handed you your drink.

  “I did.” You said. “Why do you only do covers by the way?”

  “Covers? Oh. Well, we started off by just messing about in the flat, playing stuff we liked… then we just took that on to the stage.”

  “Oh, fair enough.”

  You took a sip of your drink. We held eye contact for a moment.

  “Why? Did you get bored of hearing other people’s tunes?”

  “Not bored no, I just find it odd that you don’t have any of your own songs. Has Ryan never wrote any, or Tom?”

  “Tom struggles to write set-lists, never mind actual songs. And Ryan is more a tunes man rather than lyrics. If it was up to him we’d have a Hendrix-esque guitar solo every two minutes.”

  “You could write one.”

  “Well. Yeah. Maybe.”

  I pulled my drink up over my face and took a swig.

  “What’s wrong?” you squinted at me through the semi-darkness surrounding us.

  “Have you gone red? Why are you embarrassed?”

  “I’m not. Look, do you want a go on the mechanical bull? I can pull it out and set it up.”

  I went to stand up and head for the store room, but you pulled me back down onto the couch.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s nothing… just… don’t laugh… I wrote a song.”

  “Why would I laugh at that? You’re in a band!”

  “Yeah well, it’s just I don’t know, it’s a bit weird… writing.”

  You laughed. But in a nice way, it made me feel a bit more comfortable. I laughed too.

  “Don’t be stupid. You should sing it sometime, oh! In fact, sing it now, go on you can practice it!”

  “Shut up.”

  “Did you just tell me to shut up?”

  “No sorry, I mean, I can’t. I don’t have any music and I’ve barely read it back since I wrote it… it’s probably crap.”

  You then started to push me off the couch you’d just pulled me back on to.

  “No go on, stand up, get back on that stage and sing it”

  “I’m not singing.”

  “But you’ve just sang for the entire club, come on, just one song.”

  “No, I can’t sing with just me and you here, it’s weird.”

  “Why is it? You sing on your own, don’t you? It’s just me watching.”

  “There’s lots of things I do on my own I wouldn’t want you to watch.”

  You laughed again. I could feel myself going, I was going to end up singing, all because of your stupid laugh.

  “Please Jimmy.”

  You opened your eyes wide and pulled a sad face.

  “Oh God, bollocks, fine.”

  “Yay!”

  “But you have to sing with me.”

  “What?”

  “Sing with me, I’ll do a line, you do a line.” I smiled.