Chasing Death Metal Dreams (29 page)

Nate clicked back a screen, scrolled up, then down. There was no doubt this entry was written among several others for 2011, talking about the legalization drive, back before the 2012 elections. There was no indication saying “
edited…
” and when he clicked to the most recent post it was clear the blog was now inactive, and had been for a while. He flipped through, reading bits and pieces of the weird poetry that clogged it, along with praise of weed and odd libertarian philosophy. He found another post, a month earlier, with a short poem that sounded very familiar. Then a third bit of poetry he recognized as one of Carlos’s choruses. There they sat in black and white, what had seemed like original lyrics, now apparently pirated from the stream of posts for summer 2011. He got out of the page, searched the blog name on Google and went back in that way instead of the emailed link, retrieved 2011. July. There it was. “Tongues and Ashes” lyrics. He held the tablet out to Carlos. He felt sick, and empty, and angry. “Explain that.”

Carlos looked him in the face for a long moment, before slowly taking the tablet from his hand. Then he set it on the counter behind them, and turned away, poring over the screen. For a while, he tapped around on it, his back hunched more and more with each minute that passed. Nate watched, trying not to care how Carlos pulled in on himself, how his breathing stumbled, and resumed fast and ragged.

Too good to be true. Apparently what he’d taken for his own stupid paranoia, what he’d refused to believe, had been his subconscious knowing better. No one was ever what they seemed. Carlos swallowed audibly, and Nate clenched his fists to not reach for him.
Yeah, caught, you cheating bastard. Explain that! Please…
Nate bit his cheek hard, tasting the salt-tang of blood.

When Carlos straightened and turned, his eyes were bleak. “It has to be a cheat, a fake. I wrote that song myself, two years ago. For us. KnifeSwitch. But it needed more guitars to sound right. We recorded it once for fun, but we couldn’t play it in concert, and I never released the recording. That’s why I gave it to you. Eli, I swear!”

Nate said, “Can you prove you wrote it from scratch? Do you have the rough drafts? Anything?”

“I wrote it mostly on napkins, at this sucky party we were at. I didn’t keep them.”

“Yeah, right,” Eli drawled.

Carlos didn’t even look at Eli. “Nate, you have to believe me. It’s my own work. You know how I write. You’ve seen me.” He hurried into the bedroom and brought back the bigger of his music notebooks. “In here, there’s a bunch of songs. Lyrics, notes, scratched out, fixed. My own work. Really!”

“You’ve never shown me any of it,” Nate said, rubbing it in like salt in the wound of his naive trust. “And you don’t have that one in there?”

“Well, no.”

Eli suddenly snatched the book out of Carlos’s fingers. “Maybe you’re just faking it, huh? Scribble in the book for a while, then ‘
find
’ the lyrics?” He made finger quotes around “find”.

“Give me that.” Carlos’s voice was low and dangerous. “That’s personal. You don’t get to read it.”

Eli backed up three steps, flipping it open, and glanced down. “Ooh, yeah, wonderful lyrics. ‘
Your love makes me itch, Makes me twitch
—’”

Carlos tackled him, yanking the book away. Eli shoved him back hard enough to knock him against the counter. They both breathed hard, faces flushed, fists clenched.

Nate said, “Wait, stop!”

Neither one bothered to listen. Carlos came off the counter with a roar, swinging a fist into Eli’s gut. Eli slammed a hand against his shoulder, using his height and weight to drive Carlos to the floor. Nate dove in, getting between them, yelling wordlessly. Someone landed a smack to his ear that made him yelp, and then they all scrambled apart.

Nate rubbed his cheek, trying not to tear up.
Fuck. Fuck!
“Carlos. Can you do anything to
prove
you’re not lying?
Anything?
”

Carlos stood slowly, notebook still clutched in one hand. His dark eyes were flat and still, his jaw tight. “No. No proof.”

Come on, something.

Eli said bitterly, “Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve broken that shiny new contract we just signed. Remember the plagiarism clause? One fucking
week
and we’re all screwed.”

Nate said uncertainly, “Maybe you could buy those lyric rights from the blog?”

Eli turned on him. “I don’t care about one damned song! I care that this fucking boyfriend of yours is a liar and a thief and we tied our whole success to him and now we’re fucked up the ass. And so are you!”

“Fuck you both,” Carlos said, low and fast. “Mostly you, Nate. You claim to be my boyfriend, but you don’t trust me?”

“I’ve done trust,” Nate said bitterly. “It ended up with me—” He stopped there, because he’d never told Eli the rest, the bad stuff he’d, yeah,
trusted
Carlos enough to talk about. He narrowed his stinging eyes in a glare.
Prove to me that you’re different.

“I’m walking out that door, right now.” Carlos stared at Nate, still with that closed expression.

If he’d pleaded, seemed sorry, or tried to somehow explain why he did it, Nate might’ve tried to meet him halfway. If he’d been that desperate, if he’d admit to stealing to keep his band going, well, Nate wasn’t heartless. He knew Carlos had lived for his band. But he hated when a liar kept on lying after he was caught. “
I didn’t. Really!
”
Just like Darryl, confronted with at least two guys he’d been sleeping with, still saying, “
Don’t worry, baby. They’re just friends. Really!
” Like Deke, back in school. “
I only want you to do my homework problems so we’ll have more time to fuck. Really!
”
Really, hah! Did they
all
think Nate was that stupid?

“How can we believe you?” Nate asked quietly. “It’s right there. July 2011. Even if you wrote the song two years ago, that’s still long after that blog post. It’s not just somewhat similar, it’s almost word for word. I don’t believe in coincidences that big.”

Carlos nodded, slowly and jerkily, like a puppet pulled by a clumsy puppeteer. “Okay. Then I’m gone. Hey, Eli?”

“What!”

He swallowed audibly. “I swear, this blog guy is lying, somehow. I’ll find out how.”

Eli just pointed to the door. “I knew this whole chance was too fucking good to be true.” His voice broke. “I knew it.”

Carlos opened his mouth as if to say something else, then shut it again, his lips pressed in a thin line. Without another look at Nate, he walked to the door, went out, shut it behind him. Nate and Eli stood still, as his footsteps pounded in a rush down the stairs and were gone.

Nate turned to Eli. “Well, I sure can pick ’em, can’t I?” His laugh had a dangerous wobble.

“I don’t get it!” Eli rubbed his eyes. “I mean, he must have actually done some songs himself, right? He had to have written the music. If he could do that, why steal words…?”

“I don’t know,” Nate said miserably. The beginnings of doubt had hit him the moment the door slammed shut. What if Carlos
was
telling the truth? Had Nate just proved what a totally awful judge of character he was, one more time but in reverse? “Maybe it’s a hoax, like he said.”

“For what? They sound pissed in the email, but they didn’t ask for money. They didn’t ask for anything. And that blog has a ton of poetry on it. I’ve been scared to look further.”

“Um.” Nate was pretty sure he’d seen others of Carlos’s lyrics on that
damned
blog, but he wasn’t going to say so now.

“What if it’s not just that song? We played three of his at Sparkfest and that show was recorded and broadcast. What if we’re going to get sued for those? Or maybe sued by two
more
people? What if we’re known as the fakest band in metal history?”

“Eli—”

“Fuck!” Eli’s eyes filled with tears, overflowing down his face. “I wanted this so bad, for so long. And I thought now, finally, we were on our way. And he just burned us to the ground! God. I have to tell the guys. Our manager. Oh hell, Nate…”

Nate reached out and pulled his brother into a hug. His cheek was pressed against Eli’s broad shoulder, which was a good thing because he could hide his own face. “So sorry. I’m sorry. Maybe it’ll work out. You can drop that song, or buy it. Maybe it’ll be okay. You’re still a great band.”

“And you.” Eli’s voice against his hair sounded hard with anger. “He screwed you over worse than me. I know you liked him.”

Nate wanted to curl up in a little ball and hide under the covers, to sob and rage and not come out for days, but he said, “It’s only been a few weeks. I’ll get over him. It doesn’t matter, if we can save the band.”

Eli hugged him until it was hard to breathe. “We’ll be okay, right? One step back. We’ll figure it out.”

“Damned straight.”

After a moment they eased apart. Eli dragged the back of his hand across his face. “I could out the son of a bitch to every rabid metalhead bigot in town.”

“Don’t you dare!” Nate poked Eli’s chest roughly, even though he kind of wanted to see Carlos hurting as bad as he was now. But not that way. “Just leave him alone, you hear me? Don’t make things worse.”

“I guess. So, what do you think I should do?”

“Maybe talk to the lawyer? And see what this guy wants. Did you post on the blog at all? Send back an email?”

“The blog has no contacts listed and comments are turned off. I emailed that I wanted to talk. No answer yet.”

“Hm. Well, lawyer first then? Maybe he’s seen stuff like this before.”

“I guess.” Eli looked down, rubbing at his eyes. “I really am sorry, Nate-O. I wish I could find you a decent guy who wouldn’t screw you over.”

Nate was glad of an excuse to glare at him. “Find yourself a girl like that first, huh?”

“Right.”

“Now go away. Talk to Dad or call the lawyer, okay? Keep me in the loop.”

“If you want—”

“I want you to
go!
” He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep it together.

“Okay.” Eli reached out as if to touch his arm but dropped his hand listlessly and turned to the door. “You should lock up behind me and be careful. In case he comes back.”

He has a key.
Nate didn’t want to get into that now. He’d given Carlos that key on purpose, pushed himself to trust again, only to get it wrong one more time.
God, I’m stupid
. “I’ll be fine. He’s a thief, not violent.”

“That you know of.”

“I’m pretty sure. Anyway I’m an inch taller, and I’m used to fighting with someone your size. I’ll be fine.” He felt a little ashamed even talking about fighting Carlos. Carlos hadn’t hit Foster even when he had every reason to. He wasn’t that kind of guy.

Eli nodded and went out the door. Nate shut it without a sound, slid the lock over, and slumped with his back against it.
Damn. Shit.
His eyes ached and his head ached and his chest felt like it might split open. He still wasn’t sure what to think. Everything he thought he knew about Carlos still made him doubt the evidence.

If Carlos was telling the truth, though… If it was a fraud, a scheme… Nate pulled in a ragged breath. He’d burned his bridges for damned sure, with the things he’d said. Guilty or innocent, Carlos would never speak to him again.

He should lie down. Or take a shower. Instead he roamed the apartment aimlessly, finding little hints of Carlos everywhere. Sketches of him on the desk, a book that Carlos had laughed at left out on the bookcase, the rumpled covers on the bed where he’d been sitting. Nate leaned down and touched them, imagining he could feel the heat still lingering.

He’d done this before, breaking up with someone. He should be good at it by now. He knew the shouting and anger and burning hurt would fade to dumb bewilderment, and then slowly heal. He should be able to get there faster this time. It shouldn’t hurt as much. But he still ended up curled tight under those covers, each breath a painful victory, the warmth of another man’s body fading from memory against the rumpled sheets.

****

Carlos wasn’t sure how he drove home. Except maybe because he was used to this. Maybe all those times in the past helped him now. He’d kept his head high, never giving in when his father called him unnatural, when his classmates called him
machorra
and
dyke,
when a cop called him
wetback
— maybe those times had made him strong enough to hear Eli Goldstein call him a thief, and watch Nate nod in agreement.

He parked in his spot and went inside. His apartment was stifling, closed up tight. He’d expected to stay at Nate’s. He should throw open a window and let some air in, but somehow he didn’t want to let the world into his space. He slid into bed with all his clothes on, even his shoes. Tía Lisa would have had his head for wearing shoes in bed.

He managed a damp chuckle. Tía Lisa would’ve smacked his butt and made him put the shoes where they belonged, and then she’d have brought him some of Tío Ramón’s
dulces de nuez
candy and said, “
Okay, hon, what’s wrong.
”
She would sit quietly and listen… he suddenly
ached
to hear her voice.

He pulled out his phone and dialed.

“Hey, hon, nice to hear from you.” Tía Lisa sounded cheerful. “What’s up? Still seeing that artist guy you told me about?”

He wanted to say something simple, keep it light, but his voice betrayed him. He couldn’t force a word past the lump in his throat.

After a moment she said, “Carlos?”

He managed to croak, “Yeah.”

“Something wrong, hon?” When he didn’t answer, she said more urgently, “Are you sick? Hurt?”

“No, I…” He swallowed hard, tried again. “
Dios mío
, Tía Lisa, it’s so screwed up and I don’t know
why-y!
”

“Hey, easy, hon.” Just her voice over the phone steadied him. “It’ll be okay. I promise. Tell me what happened.”

He meant to, but it was too hard to explain. He slid the phone between his cheek and the pillow and closed his eyes. “It’s complicated. But I broke up with Nate and the band is crashing and… Could you, I dunno, could you tell me about my cousins and the dogs and all. I miss you so much.”