Exile (16 page)

Randy curses at the web of cables behind the TV. “Why does your mom still have a VCR?”

The guys keep playing, but after half an hour, there’s still no Val.

“What time did you tell her to be here?” I ask Caleb.

He looks at the clock. “Eleven.” It’s nearly twelve.

Finally, there’s a knock at the door. Caleb heads up. I hear him talking in a low voice as he returns, with Val behind him. Not hiding his conversation, just one to one, and that of course is totally fine but the intimacy of it annoys me, and I tell myself not to stew, but then stew anyway.

Val is slouched in an oversized sweatshirt, her hair tied back and beneath an orange-brimmed hat that says “Reno” in script letters. Same jeans she’s worn most every day. I even recognize the lavender socks. Her skin is pale and dark circles ring her eyes. She looks like she’s barely slept. Her frown is apparently her default setting. I don’t say anything to her, but I expect that, assuming she has some sense of decency, she’ll offer me a hello or something. After all, she was the one all over Caleb when I’m pretty sure it was clear that he was spoken for. But no, she doesn’t even look at me, just drops to the couch and tucks into a ball.

“Hey, Val,” says Jon.

“Hey.”

“You got it?” Caleb asks Randy.

Randy falls back on his butt. “Yes, finally. Welcome to the last century.” He holds out his hand and Caleb passes him the tape.

“What’s that?” Jon asks.

“So . . .” Caleb shoves his hands in his pockets. “I have some things to tell you, and after, maybe last night will make at least some kind of sense . . .”

He does a good job with it, telling them everything
about Eli, though he doesn’t read them the contents of the letter. And when he’s done, they react:

Jon: “Holleee . . . shitballs.”

Matt: “Wow.”

Val: “Did your mom say why she waited until now?”

“She did,” says Caleb, and then he doesn’t add anything else. I wonder if this is partly for my benefit, drawing a line between what I get to know and what Val gets to know. If it is, I appreciate it.

I also expect Val to have some snarky response to the shutdown, but she just mutters, “Okay, then.”

“So . . .” Caleb looks to Randy. “Let’s see it, I guess.”

“You haven’t watched it yet?” Jon asks.

Caleb’s eyes shift. “I . . . thought about watching it first but . . . I didn’t really want to. The whole thing is so weird.”

“We’re here for you, man,” says Matt.

Caleb joins me on the couch. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Val producing a Coke and a bottle of Tylenol from her bag.

“Here we go,” says Randy. The screen turns blue. Then the videotape starts to play.

There’s a wobbling view of a ceiling. Long fluorescent lights and then green walls. More shaking. A door comes into view. A hand reaches out and locks it.

Blur of movement. The camera slowly focuses. It’s been placed on a surface.

A green counter. In a bathroom. Stepping into frame is
a tall, lanky guy. He sits on the edge of the counter, holding an acoustic guitar. He’s in a skinny Weezer T-shirt and gray polyester pants. His hair is lighter than Caleb’s and pressed this way and that with product. His eyes, though, the slope of his nose and the cleft of his chin . . . similar.

“Hey, Eli,” Randy says quietly.

I squeeze Caleb’s hand. He squeezes back weakly. I can’t even tell if he’s breathing.

“Okay, here we go,” Eli says, waving, and there’s something skewed about his movements, and I realize Eli isn’t taping himself, he’s taping the reflection of himself in the mirror. And the angle of the camera is just off center, which makes him strangely ethereal, ever so slightly disconnected from reality, and all the more like a ghost speaking from the beyond. It’s a cool visual choice, and yet, isn’t it strange to think about composition when you’re making a video for a son you never knew? It seems oddly theatrical. “Welcome to the secret recordings of Allegiance’s black sheep.” He smiles to himself, but it looks halfhearted.

There are distant sounds behind him: thumps and muffled voices, like how the other bands sound through the wall at the Hive.

Eli glances off camera, a shadow crossing his face. When he looks back he says, “Nobody knows what I’m doing in here. . . . Well, they think they know.” This makes him laugh again, but also shudder. He’s twitchy. His eyes rarely stay in one place, and his arms and shoulders are alive
in constant, tiny movements. It seems likely that drugs have been on the menu, and will be again sooner than later.

“Those are the Hollywood Bowl bathrooms,” Randy says, adding, “the backstage ones.”

Eli takes a deep breath and steadies his gaze into into the camera. “Hey, far comet,” he says, looking through the screen and through time to his son. “Or whoever’s found this. Maybe you’re a worker at a city dump. Maybe you’re an alien. Woooo . . .” He bounces his hand around on the air like it’s a flying saucer. “Either way, welcome to my bathroom sessions.” He starts speaking in a slightly British accent: “In which we secretly complete the last three songs we will ever write.”

This makes Caleb release a tight exhale. I put my arm around him. This must be excruciating. As I do this, I hear a huff from beside me, but I’m not looking over at Val. She doesn’t get to be part of this.

“Okay . . .” Eli glances at the door again. “I gotta be quick. Let’s see . . .” His hands move over the strings, and he strums out a couple chords, not in any rhythm. “Yeah,” he says to himself, “there it is. This is a new song I’ve been calling ‘Exile.’”

“Dude,” Matt whispers, and I can feel us all holding our breath as Eli starts to play.

“That was, D,” Jon says, peering at the screen. “A minor . . . to F?” He’s asking Caleb, but Caleb doesn’t seem to hear him.

“F,” says Randy.

Eli starts strumming. Slow and hypnotic chords in progression. Like when Caleb played “On My Sleeve,” there is something solitary and almost more engrossing about a single guitar.

“That bathroom has awesome reverb,” Jon says randomly.

Eli repeats the chord progression, head down. He’s lost in it. Then he starts to hum, a wordless melody. It’s lonely and searching, and . . . huge. Like if Coldplay had soul.

Then the chords change, slightly more busy, the tension higher, and Eli’s head comes up. His eyes are still closed, his face looking pained, and he sings:

He hangs on a minor chord . . . then starts back into the verse. Humming again. There are impressions of words here and there, like ideas are coming to him.

But pounding on the door cuts him off.

Eli’s reaction is sudden. His face contorts all the way to rage, and he shakes in an all-over tremor. “Motherf . . . ,” he starts, mumbling a slew of swears to himself. It’s one part deeply angry, and yet one part . . . well, a little crazy-person. Unstable. The other side of Eli. Or one of many.

There’s a muffled voice.

“All right, already, fuck!” Eli shouts. “I’m coming.”

He looks back to the camera. His face switches back to calm. It’s unnerving how fast it happens, especially with the mirror skew. “Okay. I’ve got lyrics, just need to get them worked into the melody. I’ll record more tomorrow night.”

He reaches the camera. Sound of fingers on buttons . . . the screen goes blue.

We all watch the blank screen. Waiting for more.

After ten seconds, Randy starts to fast-forward. There’s only the whine of spinning tape. “Huh.” The rest is blank. He pops it out. “The next night must be on another tape.”

“Whoa, okay, just hold on for one sec,” says Jon. “Did we just see what I think we saw?”

“You did,” says Caleb.

“‘Exile.’ One of Allegiance’s lost songs,” Jon breathes. “Do you think he recorded all three?”

“No idea,” says Caleb. “His letter made it sound that way.”

“Son of a bitch,” says Val.

“You okay?” Matt asks.

I look over and see Val wiping her eyes. When she sees me noticing, she makes her deepest scowl yet. “Yes, fine. That’s just, really freakin’ sad, you know? That song was going to be amazing. That bastard had it all right there in his head . . . but he put it in the ocean instead. So self-destructive.”

It’s odd to me to hear this coming from Val, who seems
right on the edge of similar behavior.

“Okay, but,” Jon wonders, “are we thinking there’s actually another tape?”

“If there is, he would have hidden it,” Caleb thinks aloud. “He said, ‘tomorrow night.’ Maybe at the next show?” He looks to Randy. “Where did they play after LA?”

Randy scratches his beard. “Can’t remember. Their last show was in New York City, but that was about a week after the Hollywood Bowl. That’s when Eli took off. Like, literally he went AWOL and the band had to cancel the rest of the tour. But after LA . . .” Randy sounds distant.

“Were you at that Hollywood Bowl show?” I ask him.

“No,” he says. “Not any shows on that tour. It’s just weird to see him now . . .” He trails off.

“I’ll look up the tour,” says Jon, his finger flicking over his tablet. “Mmm, late nineties are thin for detail online, like looking into ancient history . . .”

“Wait,” says Matt. “Guys . . .” We find him turning around and pointing his thumbs at his back. “It’s right here.” The back of his Allegiance shirt has a column of show dates.

“Nice fashion choice, Matty!” Jon jumps up and runs his finger down the dates. “San Francisco,” he reports. “They played the Fillmore.”

“Would the tape be in a restaurant again?” Randy wonders. “The place they ate after the show? That was always Eli’s favorite part, when the pressure of the show was behind him and he could just unwind.”

“Eli’s letter mentioned a Daisy,” I offer. “Maybe that’s the clue for the second tape.”

“We’re talking about this like it might be real,” says Matt, sounding awestruck.

“That looked pretty real to me,” says Jon. “And, if there really is another tape, and Eli wanted you to have it, shouldn’t we
definitely
do that?”

Everyone looks to Caleb. He’s been quiet. He seems so overwhelmed by all this. Finally, he says, “How are we even going to get to San Francisco?”

“I can take you guys,” says Randy.

“My parents aren’t going to let me road trip to SFO without a reason,” says Matt. “I know, very
little brother
of me.” He fires a glance at me.

I let it go, already typing in my phone. “What if we had a gig up there?” I have one idea in mind, and pull up the show calendar in the
SF Weekly
.

“They might be cool with that,” says Matt.

I see two things on the calendar that could work, both on the same Friday night in two weeks. One is an underground pop series called
Forecast: Sweaters!
that happens at an all-ages space called Tea & Crumpets. I’d wanted to book Postcards into it last year, and I still have contact info for Petunia, the girl who curates the show. I send a quick message to her.

The other opportunity would be the show happening over at the Rickshaw Stop that very same night: Sundays
on Mars. Jason’s band. There’s only one opener listed so far. We could still get that show . . . but I can barely stomach the idea of Jason being near the band, or the secret we’d be carrying with us. If Eli really did hide songs, someone from Candy Shell records is about the last person on the planet he’d want to get them.

“There’s a pop showcase,” I say. “It’s supposed to be cool.”

“Is that the weekend of the Harvest Slaughter?” Caleb wonders.

“Ah, yeah, it is. And I got you guys into that.”

“Nice work,” says Caleb.

“Thanks, but that’s Saturday.” Except I’m also remembering what else I said I’d do that weekend. The college visits.

Crap.

“I’m not seeing anything about what Allegiance did after that San Fran show . . . ,” says Jon, swiping his finger back and forth across his pad, “or anything about a Daisy. No restaurants, nothing.”

My phone beeps. A reply from Petunia. That was fast. “Okay,” I report to the band. “Got the gig.”

“Wow, well done!” says Matt, his eyes regaining their innocent sparkle for a moment.

“Cool,” says Caleb. “We’re going on tour.” He sounds excited, but doesn’t quite smile.

“Can I just ask,” says Jon, “what are we going to do
with these tapes if we find them? I mean, besides geek out over them?”

I look at Caleb. He meets my gaze. “Summer thinks we should learn them,” he says.

“And you?” Jon asks.

Caleb’s mouth tightens into a knot. “What do you guys think?”

“Are you going to storm off again if we say something you don’t like?” Val asks.

I have to give her credit for that one.

Caleb nods. “I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t trust you guys, and I fucked up. But I’m trusting you now, telling you about all this.”

Jon and Matt share a look. Val picks at her finger.

“I think Summer’s right,” says Jon. “If we find any songs, we should learn them. And then play them for the world.”

“Yeah,” Matt agrees. “That would be the biggest show ever. Val?”

Val just looks at Caleb. “It’s your call. Eli chose you to give the songs to.”

“I know,” says Caleb, staring at the floor.

Still staring. None of us move.

And finally: “I don’t know yet.”

Jon sighs slowly, but no one says anything. I’m glad he heard it from everyone else. Not because it means I wasn’t the only one thinking it. But I think we all can sense that,
now that he knows what we think, he still might need time to come around to it.

“Okay . . . ,” Jon says. “But at the very least, we are going to play a gig in San Francisco, and if the next tape does exist, we’re going to get a private concert of a never-before-heard song.”

“Yes,” says Caleb.

“I can live with that.” He turns to Matt and brightens. “Road trip!” They high-five.

“Now that that’s settled, can we please go practice?” says Val. “Hopefully nobody’s forgotten that we still need to be, like, good when we go to San Fran.”

“Let’s meet up in an hour,” Caleb says, and gets quiet again. “Randy, can you rewind that thing?”