Porch Steps
I had come here to be alone. I had silenced my phone and locked the door, but I stepped out onto the porch to soak in the sun that had been hidden over the long winter. The cement steps were cold underneath my jeans, but the sun was warm on my face. My eyes were shut to focus on the birdsong and traffic far in the distance when the sound of a car crunching over gravel forced open my eyes.
He looked at me out the window for a minute before making up his mind and opening the door. Climbing out in one graceful movement of flannel and denim, glasses and trucker hat hiding his face while he walked up the walk, hands stuffed in his pockets and his shoulders rounded in apology or defeat. Did it matter?
He sat down next to me without invitation and I resisted the urge to creep a few inches further away. I wouldn't concede my ground to the uninvited. The sun shone on his reddish brown hair and made his eyes squint into the middle age wrinkles that were usually invisible on his round face. He sighed and looked down at the grey steps.
"I tried to call. I know you don't want me here, but I had to see you. I had to make sure you were ok."
"You just told me an hour ago that you don't think we can be friends anymore. So I'm not really sure why you are so concerned with my wellbeing."
It wasn't easy to be angry with him. It wasn't easy to feel this emptiness where he had been for so long. Without looking at him I knew there was a mole over his left eyebrow. I knew that there was a scar on his chin where his brother had sliced it open with a stick when they were kids pretending to be Jedi. I knew that he was hurting now, but I couldn't bring myself to care or to ask why he had to turn that into hurting me.
"But don't you remember what it was like before?"
I wanted to remember him as he was when I first saw him. 17 years old, shaggy hair in his face so the world wouldn't look at him too closely. He was standing with his bandmates off to the side of the old dance floor of the 1920s ballroom turned punk venue. I had just walked in with my bandmates for what was a weekend Battle of the Bands, a local thing that had been going on for decades. We had just arrived for the Friday evening pre-competition competition. Basically each band got one song to wow the judges enough to even get a place on the roster. I was also 17 and completely sure that we would get about 30 seconds on stage and then we would be boo'd off. Yes, our competition were all local punk bands of mostly teenagers who were probably going to be awful, but I was certain we would be more awful.
I had tried to talk my brother Dave. our drummer, out of signing us up for this thing because I just didn't think I was ready to face a whole room of punks. We hadn't been a band that long and we had only recently found our bass player, Steph, who thankfully was also a girl because I was tired of only hanging out with dudes. Now she leaned in and whispered to me, "We could just leave. Couldn't we? I don't think I even remember how to play the whole song."
"It's a punk song. It's like 3 chords repeated over and over. You are more than capable of that," I hyped her up. Yet, I was drowning in my own doubts in this room full of tattoos and Docs and testosterone. My brother slapped me on the back and said, "Look. I told you it would just be a room full of assholes who think they can play because they listened to two Green Day songs and now they think they're Billie Joe Armstrong. This'll be easy." Fuck if he didn't have enough cockiness for all four of us.
I scanned the room mostly agreeing with Dave's comment. Mostly guys in skinny jeans and white t-shirts with a mohawk here and there. Until I saw him and his band. He was so scrunched into himself. A yellow t-shirt with some logo I didn't know, a baseball hat shoved on his brushed aside bangs, hair that hung over his collar. Old Chucks scuffing the floor like he couldn't keep still. He didn't belong here either. I could just tell.
"Hey - aren't those the guys from Social Index?" Our guitar player, Hank, had been around the scene with my brother far longer than I had and knew everyone.
"Yeah! It is! Thank fuck we'll have some kind of competition," Dave answered as he started walking in the direction of baseball hat/old Chucks and his band. We all followed behind, my heart hammering in my chest because I would have to perform in front of this room and because, honestly, I had instantly developed a little crush at first site on Baseball hat/old Chucks and I would have preferred to stay across the room making up fantasies about running my fingers through his fringe. Instead I found myself following in Hank's wake while I pulled Steph along behind me through the scent sea of body odor and old beer.
I'm sure the ballroom had once been grand and had hosted big bands in suits and neatly trimmed hair. The walls were still decorated with art deco flourishes and balconies where the elite would have sat to look down on elegant women in shimmery dresses and men in tuxedos. Now it had been turned into a punk scene that was normally dark and loud and often violent. Young men getting out their frustrations by body slamming each other on the ballroom floor. (insert Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz" here) We had played here once, only recently as part of a showcase of local bands. When we weren't onstage I was up in one of the balconies trying to avoid the flying shirtless bodies. I had no idea what I was doing here. I loved the music but hated the scene. I wasn't even sure how I ended up in the band other than Dave had convinced me I could sing and play guitar decent enough to be in his band. Truth was, I could. Probably better than 90% of this room, but that wasn't what this scene valued. It was all attitude and anger and I didn't have a lot of either.
As we closed in on Social Index, one of their members noticed Dave and grabbed his hand in a fist and said, 'Dave! Mother Fucker, I haven't seen you since Graphic Blandishment imploded!"
"Yeah, I was out of the scene for awhile while I rebuilt the whole band. I didn't want to make the mistake of getting in with a bunch of assholes again. You know Hank, right?"
"Absolutely! Hank! What happened to Staker?"
"Also fucking imploded. Our bass player ran off with our drummer's fiance. Shit happens all the time, right?"
"All the fucking time. So, you guys know Andy and Steve, right? And this is our new guy Declan. Kid has a killer voice."
"Can't wait to hear it!" Dave said. "Other than Hank, we have our bass player Steph and my little sister Beth. Guys this is Cody and the rest of Social Index."
I had been hiding behind Dave, feeling more and more out of place in this scene where everyone knew everyone and most of the everyones were dudes slightly older than me. I had noticed that Baseball hat/old Chucks, or Declan as I now knew him to be, didn't have the testosterone dripping swagger of the rest of the room. He hung back, looking as nervous as I felt. When Dave said my name I peeked around him and found myself looking right into the eyes of Declan. He looked sweet, a little sad, a little lost and a lot like someone I wanted to know better.
And here he sat next to me on a cold concrete porch step 30 years later. Still in a hat, still in his Chucks, still looking sad and lost, but now that look was because I hadn't let him finish whatever he was going to say after, "I don't think I can be friends with you anymore."
Then he had the nerve to ask me if I remembered what it was like before. Which before? The one before we were just friends or the one before that when we were more?
"Declan, I don't know what you want. What do you want me to remember? Why are you even here?"
"I'm here because you didn't let me finish what I was saying. I'm here because you got this look on your face like I had killed your dog. And I couldn't stand the thought it was me that made you feel that way when it could have been avoided if I was just better at saying the shit that's hard for me to say."
He was looking at down at his feet, the ever present Chucks that he never tied all the way to the top. I knew everything about the man sitting beside me. That he loved comics but also novels. That he was constantly trying to learn a new language but didn't have the patience to see it through. That he had never quite accepted that he was a level of famous most people could only fantasize about and even then they got the reality all wrong. But I had no idea what he was thinking right now. I had no idea what he was about to say and that's why I'd turned and left and not let him finish whatever came after, "I don't tink I can be friends with you anymore" because I couldn't imagine life without him. I could barely remember a time I hadn't known him.
"So just say it. Just say whatever it is without feeling like it has to be some scripted grand whatever. Just say it."
He sighed again and looked up from his feet to my eyes.
"I've been thinking a lot about those months right after we first met."
Those months. I thought about them a lot too.
Neither of our bands won the Battle of the Bands that weekend at the old ballroom. I will forever argue that Social Index should have come in first just based on Declan's voice alone, but he wasn't traditional punk and what their band was playing wasn't what that crowd wanted. It was what I wanted and luckily, listening to them over the course of the weekend persuaded the other members of our band that maybe we could do more than the 3 chord, 2 minute punk song. Our bands had hung out the whole weekend and it was obvious we all got along really well and that our members almost paralleled theirs.
Cody and Dave were both loud and crazy and attracted the attention of every woman in the room. It's like they were both born to be front men and yet, Cody was a bass player and Dave played drums. Steph and Andy were both straight edge and took immaculate care of their bodies. They were both awesome people. but preferred to just play the music and avoid attention. Hank and Steve were too smart to be in punk bands and should have been in college studying physics or something. They would get into deep conversations about the universe or some new technology and lose the rest of us in their ramblings.
Which of course left Declan and I. The youngest members and the only two who weren't yet legal adults. In fact, we hadn't graduated high school yet. Declan didn't give a shit about his grades and was squeaking by with a C average. He only cared about music which was the only thing he excelled in at school. I wasn't anywhere near the brain power of Hank and Steve, but I cared about my grades and thought I would go to college when the band thing didn't pan out. Because let's be honest, it rarely panned out. Declan's parents were on him to go to college too, but he was really undecided about what to do.
We were both the quietest members of our bands, front men and women who had only reluctantly accepted the role because we could sing. The punk scene in our area wasn't huge, so we ran in the same circles and eventually knew the same people, and ended up at the same shows. We pooled our small amount of money to rent a shared rehearsal space and spent stupid amounts of time together doing absolutely nothing.
My crush on Declan only grew as I got to know him and realized that he was as sweet as I thought the first time I saw him. He was also intense when it came to the band and could have a real temper when the other guys were being stupid and he wanted them to focus. He didn't seem interested in dating or having a girlfriend, only in getting out of high school so he could throw all of his energies into music. And both bands were getting attention and there was pressure to do some local touring. Declan and I were the thing that was holding the bands back since we had to go to classes everyday.
One afternoon I got to the rehearsal space early and sat on the old paisley couch that someone's mother had been throwing away. I pulled out the book I was reading for English while I waited. Declan showed up not long after, threw his backpack in the corner and collapsed next to me.
"I can't wait for the next month to be over. I can't even concentrate on this shit anymore. Why do I care about Algebra and writing fucking English papers. I only want to compose music."
"I know. It's all a societal construct. I don't even know what I want to do with my life."
"You want to front a successful band, don't you?"
"That's kind of Dave's dream for me. He wanted to be in a band and I happened to know how to play guitar and sing so here I am too. I really love music and the scene. It's fun. I just don't know if it's forever."
"So be a writer then. It's the other thing you love," Declan had said this so easily. Like it was obvious to anyone and it was true. I did really love to write and I was always talking about ideas for all the stories I would write someday. Yet, I was shocked anyone had been listening.
"Wow! I can't believe you've been paying attention to that."
"Of course! The ideas you talk about are actual books I would read. Not the shit they make us read in school or the shit in the bookstore. You should do it."
He stared at his Chucks and was quiet for a minute. His face moving in a way that said he was trying to decide whether or not to say what was on his mind.
"Would you ever date a friend?" he asked in a barely perceptible voice. Barely above a whisper. "I mean, like someone you've hung out with and know. Would you ever consider them as more than a friend?"
"I don't know. Is the friend you?"
He jerked his head up from his Chucks and looked at me with a terrified expression, "Umm, well, I..." He breathed out heavily, "Yeah."
I sat quietly for a minute wanting to savor this moment when my crush on him went from pure fantasy to reality. Just then the door opened and Cody and Dave poured in laughing and smelling like weed and the silent spell of just Declan and I was broken. His shoulders slumped forward and he muttered, "Fuck!"under his breath and then, "I shouldn't have said anything,"
I realized my silence had felt like rejection and as he started to get up I put my hand on his arm and just said, "Absolutely. I absolutely would if it was you."
The rest of the bands showed up and it was music and more weed and laughter and chaos and Declan and I didn't talk anymore and I worried that he had changed his mind. But that night as I finished my homework and got ready to go to bed the phone in my room rang. It was him.
"So, I want to take you somewhere. Are you free tomorrow night?"
"Absolutely."
The next night he took me to a poetry reading which I knew he probably hated and which made it all the sweeter that he had thought to do it for me. We held hands after on the way to the car. I kissed him chastely on the cheek when he dropped me off. And then I masturbated to the thought of him that night. As I had been doing for months by that point.
We hid things from the bands because it seemed easier than enduring the teasing that was sure to come. We were friends in front of them, but saw each other whenever we could alone. Things moving from chaste cheek kisses to deep tongue kisses and under the shirt petting in his car.
One night I got cocky and invited him to my house because my parents were gone and Dave was supposed to be staying at his girlfriends house. Declan and I were in the middle of what could have become the first time for both of us when suddenly Declan was ripped off of me and dangled in the air by a very red faced, very angry Dave. A very amused Cody laughing his ass off next to them.
"What the fuck? That's my fucking sister you fucking little prick. You don't touch my fucking sister. I'll kill you."
Dave didn't even realize who he had grabbed by the collar until Cody said, "Dave, DAVE! Calm the fuck down. It's Declan, man."
Dave looked over at poor, blushing Declan and then at angry as fuck me.
"Dave! I am more than capable of taking care of myself. You don't have to come in here with fucking guns blazing to defend your sister's honor! It's not the 1800s! I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions about this!"
Dave let Declan's collar go and Declan collapsed onto the couch next to me.
"All I want to know is why you guys didn't tell us," Cody said.
"Because you're all fucking assholes who tease each other all the time and find the most sensitive thing about a person to pick on. It's fucking brutal and we didn't want that," I hoped it was ok I had said "we."
"This very fucking moment is why we didn't say anything. We're barely individual people in this group," thankfully it seemed we were on the same page.
Dave had settled down and looked genuinely sorry that he'd made such an ass of himself. "Alright. You're both right. But, I think the bands should know. It involves all of us if you guys break up and the vibe goes to shit."
With that Dave and Cody left and I took Declan's hand. "I'm sorry. If you want to leave and forget about us, I'll understand." I would be devastated, but I would understand.
"Im not going anywhere. I don't care about 'the vibe.' I want to graduate and make music and I want to kiss you and talk to you and that's it. I... I love you. I'm not going anywhere."
I gasped and could feel my eyes get big when I turned to him. "You... you what? You what?"
He took my hands and looked at me. "I love you. You have to know that, right?"
I shook my head, "No. But I love you too. Almost from the moment I saw you at the Battle of the Bands weekend."
"When will your parents be home?"
"Not until tomorrow."
"And Dave?"
I shrugged. "I have no idea. He was supposed to stay with his girlfriend tonight and she's a real bitch so she'd probably be pretty pissed if he doesn't."
"Do you want to finish what we started?"
"I... I haven't... I mean... "
"Me either."
"What? That's impossible! You're a cute boy who sings and plays guitar in a band. Every woman at those shows would want to fuck you."
"1. I don't want to 'fuck' them or anyone. 2. I'm a band nerd. No one wants to fuck me. And that's not what this would be. Am I pressuring you? I'm pressuring you. Shit. Nevermind. I'll go home. Shit."
"Dec. Stop." I stood up and took his hand. "Come with me." I started to lead him to the stairs and up to my room. "Wait. Do you have, you know... something... protection."
He stared down at his Chucks again, "Yeah. Is that bad that I thought it might happen?"
"Fuck no! I'm glad we don't have to wait." I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him. He enveloped me in his arms. "Let's go."
And it was better than I had imagined when I had imagined him in my bed all those nights alone. He fit just right and he smelled like home and I didn't care about all of the other cliches that went through my head at that moment. I wanted it to last forever.
"What about them? We left that behind a long time ago."
"Yeah. But they were pretty amazing."
"Yeah. But you ended it. You were the one who wanted to be free. You were the one who left to go on tour and left it behind."
"I know. I stand by the fact it was the right decision at the time. We never would have lasted as two eighteen year olds being launched into the stratosphere the way we were with the bands. We would have broken up eventually and in a way that might have meant we couldn't be friends like we ended up."
"Yes. I agree. I was devastated at first. I hated you for about a year, but we did overcome it. So, why the fuck are you telling me that we can't be friends now?"
Another deep sigh and another scuffle of his Chucks. He adjusted his trucker hat and squinted into the sun.
"Not that I don't want to be friends. That I'm struggling to be just friends. It's killing me to see you everyday in the studio and not be able to tell you how I feel. We haven't spent this much time together everyday since we were 18 and It's reminding me of everything I loved about you and what a dumbass I was not to see it sooner. I will be friends if that's all we can be, but.... I really want more. We're both divorced now. It's the right time!"
I had wanted more for so long. And then he got a serious girlfriend and I had to give up and accept his friendship. And for a long time it had been enough.
Once Declan and I graduated, there wasn't anything keeping us off the road. We started touring locally and seeing each other less and less. They were gone. We were gone. They recorded a record. We recorded a record. We got to spend time together when both bands got booked to Warp Tour but that's when it took off. That's when Social Index was launched into stardom and signed with a big label and booked to a huge tour. That's when Declan decided he needed to see what that was like without a girlfriend back home.
I understood what he meant. I understood the reality of the situation and how it made sense, but it still hurt like fuck and I hated him with all of my being. Our bandmates took to our corners and barely spoke. Just like Dave had predicted that night in the living room. My band had my back and wouldn't see the the guys from Social Index, even when I told them that was silly. We stayed apart for almost a year. During which time we also got a record deal and launched a tour.
And I came to realize that Declan was right when I was making out with the lead singer of the band we were opening for and his hand was inside my underwear making me squirt all over him. We had been babies. We never would have lasted through the pressure and ridiculous schedules of the road. Not to mention the opportunities for casual hook ups and tour bus blow jobs.
Our bands were slated to play Warp Tour again the next year and it was there that we all started hanging out again. When I could finally tell Declan I understood and was glad why he had broke it off. When we went back to being friends. Over the years I dated actors and musicians and he got one steady girlfriend who wasn't in the business but seemed to understand the crazy schedules. They got married and I went to the wedding alone. And cried in my hotel room after with Steph holding me and telling me she understood. That she had always thought Declan and I were soul mates.
I started dating an actor who was always on location which was fine because I was always touring. We got married even though we barely knew one another. Dave got married, and divorced, and married again. Hank got married. Steph married our long time manager and had a baby. Steve had a baby and then got married. Andy got married and was content with dogs instead of babies. Cody had been the cover boy for the whole scene that our bands started. The pressure was immense and the paparazzi intense. He took too many pills one night on Warp Tour and Declan found him in their room. He was sure Cody was dead. But, he made it and got help and had a kid.
The years went on and we were at each other's weddings and celebrated births and had parties and BBQs and played music and toured and grew up and older.
Declan got divorced first. After his wife revealed she had been seeing someone else for the last five years of their marriage. That fucks a guy up and Declan threw himself into being an amazing dad and musician, I got divorced a couple of years later when my husband and I realized that we had spent 20 years being apart and hardly knew one another. We parted as best friends and co-parents and I love him with all my heart, but not as a soul mate. That space has always felt occupied,
A few months ago the record company realized that Social Index and Yeah!Nadia shared a history and a fan base and that it would be awesome if we recorded some kind of collab album and toured together. It was suddenly like the early days. We were sharing a rehearsal space and writing songs together and seeing each other everyday. The only difference was we were surrounded by family life. Spouses and kids and demands outside of each other. Declan and I both had kids at college so we were more flexible than those with little ones at home. We stayed in the studio writing or playing music together late into the night.
And yes, I had thought that maybe I was feeling something again. But, I thought it might have just been nostalgia. I had gotten an electric charge when our hands met. I had wanted to kiss him when he was leaning over the control panel towards me. I had wanted to throw his guitar aside and mount him on the studio floor. But, I tried to remember the way it hurt everyone when it ended before and how much more we had to lose now.
"What if everyone gets hurt again?"
"Does that mean you feel it too?"
"Dec, I don't think I ever stopped feeling it which is probably why I married a guy I spent very little time with. I didn't have to face the daily guilt of being married to him and loving someone else," I stared at my own shoes when I said that in case it was too much too soon.
"I know that guilt. It's why I couldn't even be that mad when it turned out Mia had been fucking someone else for five years. You and I have always been meant to be. I just wish it hadn't taken me so long to realize it."
"You were right to end it all those years ago. We never would have survived the fame at eighteen. We were able to be friends again because you ended it before it could all go bad. Yes, there's regret, but our kids grew up knowing each other and the bands are all still close. I think you're right. It's time now."
I took his calloused hand that had played songs for millions. "Do you want to finish what we started?"
"I don't know. Do you have protection?" He smirked.
"I do. But not for my heart." I groaned at the cheesy line.
"No worries there." He kissed me on the cold porch steps and time righted itself the way it does when things that are meant to be finally... be.