A New Tense. Jo Day
friends I should get in contact with. Gemma, Ryan, Scotty, Holly. And Ada — I missed Ada. I’d only met her a few years ago but it’d felt like I’d known her forever, so that we talked about experiences we’d had when we were kids as though the other had been there. “I’ve completely lost you, haven’t I?” I came back, shook my head. It was dark, the night light had flicked on. Moths and other bugs were bashing into it. “Yeah, completely, I was totally in my head. Go on, tell it again, I’ll try to listen.” “It’s alright,” he said, smiling. “You can just play it when it’s done.” “Thanks,” I said gratefully. He’d always been into video games, since I’d first known him. The first time I went to his house he’d made fun of me, telling me I was no fun to play against because I was so bad. I didn’t really know what a video game was — mum didn’t have a television or a computer or a mobile for years, which could’ve been great. Like I’d be trampling through the wilderness, or something, when what I was really doing was taking my skateboard down to the skate park and sitting with the older boys, drinking their beer and smoking the weed they gave me as a joke, imitating their machismo. One of the boys, they called me for a while, and I wore this title with pride before I started to realise that they were excusing me from something that didn’t need excusing. So when I went to Jones’ and saw the television and the console I had no idea what I was doing. When he realised that I was confused and getting embarrassed and angry at his comments he’d backed off, had said, It’s okay, you play for a while, I’ll teach you. I can’t believe you get to play for the first time. The first times, man, those are the best. “And you,” he said, lighting a cigarette. “What have you been doing?” I told him the outline. Working a little, playing a lot, boozy nights out and boozy nights in. Making zines. Odd jobs I’d gotten, people I’d met. “I’m in a band with one of my housemates,” I said. “We’re not bad.” “Oh yeah? That’s cool.” I couldn’t tell but I thought that I heard a tone of caution in his voice. Jones and I had played together for a while, growing up. He played drums, he said if you understood maths it was easy. I wasn’t sure that I believed that but it seemed to work for him. I bought myself a shitty bass and amp with one of my first pay checks and we started to play together. We started playing with Pete when he moved in. He played guitar, he’d been in a few bands in England, some folk-punk stuff we hadn’t heard of before, which I’d liked but Jones hadn’t. We got better because of Pete. Jones and I had been lazy with practice, preferring instead to get drunk, but Pete wouldn’t have that. He introduced us to bands we hadn’t heard of before. We all sang even though none of us had good voices. Jones’ was monotonous, Pete’s wavered in and out of tune. I could sing but I hated the girlish sound of it (it took me the longest time to stop hating anything feminine, one of the boys rang so often in my head) so I forced it to sound guttural. After I’d started to get horrible sore throats I went to see a doctor. He told me that I was starting to get nodules and said, trying to be helpful, Well, you should probably learn how to sing. Pete would stand in between Jones and the game on the television (the most dangerous place in the world) and wouldn’t say anything but would just look at him, chin tilted down and eyebrows raised, refusing to move until Jones, grumbling, would put the controller down and we’d go practice. We had a few shows, supporting other bands, and we got good feedback. “Maybe we could play together sometime,” I said. He shook his head. I thought he was going to say something — I wasn’t sure what — but he just stood up. “Do you want another beer?” “Sure.” I reached for my tobacco, saw that it was empty and reached for Jones’ instead. Lifted my arms to stretch my back and looked at the plants on the patio, ferns and potted palms in terracotta pots. One that I’d bought for Calliope for her fiftieth birthday. It needed watering.
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