Screaming in Harmony
Don't pet the screamer.
Dear Reader,
Welcome to new subscribers of this newsletter. Each month I put out an original illustrated short story in a variety of genres. This month we are exploring a darker side of the human experience.
Grief comes in many different forms. The most obvious is the loss of a loved one, but there are other losses that lead to grief: loss of a job; loss of a relationship; loss of a future we thought we could count on, the realization that something will never be.
Sometimes times it can be difficult to recognize the signs of grief because everything is coming out sideways. Grief is messy, unpredictable. I used to think that if I simply understood what I was feeling and why, I could channel it, manage it, and get over it quickly. I’ve since learned that with grief, we have to sit with the pain, experience it, and wait it out.
Eventually, we must choose to move on, reinvent ourselves, or lose ourselves.
~Screaming in Harmony~
Blaze liked to hang out at the 24-hour gym. He preferred late-night workouts. Anything after 10 pm was prime time. I went with him when he came home on leave, but not in the brother tag-along sort of way. In the gym, when he was pumping iron, he was actually bearable. He said stupid shit like “pain is weakness leaving your body,” but at least it was motivating, and sort of true.
One time, after I spotted Blaze while he bench pressed twice my bodyweight, a dude walked up to me. He held up his phone.
“Is this you?” he had asked, playing a video. It showed me in our high school practice room, where my friends and I had been hanging out, as seniors with a study hall do.
I had been messing around on the keys while they goofed off. I hadn’t noticed when they got quiet. When I finally looked up, I had found a camera phone pointed at me, my friends silent. They had posted it on social media with the caption “Bard Bound,” as in Bard Conservatory of Music.
The tinny speakers tried and failed to fill the cavernous warehouse of the gym, a weak echo of the actual song. Blaze stood, sweat dripping down his neck. He pulled out one headphone from his ear to listen. Senses Fail, Blaze’s newest screamo-band obsession, ripped down the freights of an electric guitar, blasting through the earphone.
He clapped me on the shoulder. “Nicely done bro. Chicks love a rock star.”
He shipped off to Iraq the next day. The movie went viral before graduation.
When mom asked me to play something at his funeral, I had no idea what he’d’ve wanted. His workout playlist felt wrong to me; too much screaming, though it was definitely dark enough.
“You’re on in five,” Eckhart, the stage manager at Cosmo’s Shore, calls back to us.
Smiley slaps my knee as he hoists himself off the couch. I’m not sure if the couch is actually mustard color, or if enough bands spilled on it with packets from the burger joint next door to turn it that sour color. It would explain the smell. Maybe it was stained from the tobacco fingers of singers needing to ‘calm the nerves’ before going on. Or maybe it was sweat from performers who needed a place to crash, or pass out.
I stand and square my shoulders, let a breath out. Smiley taps me on the back, passes me a blunt. Backstage the shadows are blue bordering on black. The smoke from my mouth twines into purple in front of my face. It’s too dark to truly see. Then we walk out, and the lights pin us to the stage. But we aren’t supposed to see; we’re supposed to be seen. Heard.
George clocks out a beat on his sticks, blows into the drums, and we let loose.
Blaze liked this music. He’d’ve liked all the girls’ eyes on me; microphone in hand, black lines around my eyes, hair looking like I’ve not washed in days, clothes that could have been cleaner if I pulled them from the gutter. He’d’ve liked their eyes pawing over me, mouthing the lyrics I scream.
I like that it’s so loud I can’t think.
I NEVER ASKED FOR HEROS,
BLACK STARS ALFAME—
FAR AS I CAN SEE—
WON’T STOP THIS SUFFERING
LISTEN, LISTEN, I GUESS WE ALL LET GO
WHEN THE LETTING GO BEATS LIVING
BUT I’LL HOLD ON—BLACK STARS —
FOR ONCE SHUT UP AND LISTEN
IF PAIN KILLS WEAKNESS,
AND WEAKNESS KILLS,
AND ALL THE HEROS BURY IT,
THEN DEATH IS ALL I SEE…
When we finish the set and hop down off the stage, women close in, like moths to a flame. I weave through the crowd to the bar and knock back a bourbon. It burns against the raw flesh, then warms, then numbs. My own flame. That’s a real benefit of performing; free booze. Bartenders are really only supposed to give one drink on the house. I find they like to take care of the lead singer, keep him hydrated. Mike and George track me down eventually, women in jeans and tight shirts dripping off them. Smiley’s already preoccupied.
“Derrick—let’s go man, we’ve got fans who’d like to appreciate us,” George grins.
I shake my head, keeping my eyes on him, ignoring the blond hopeful.
“Gotta rest my voice,” I say.
“I don’t think it’s your voice we’ll be needing, Derrick,” Mike says. A woman traces the contours of his ear with her tongue, maybe to convey the pleasure he gave her on stage.
I throw a few ones onto the bar, tip for the bartender cause I’m not a total ass, and disappear into the crowd, extricating myself with a smile. They’re not bothered long.
The house will be full tonight, and I don’t think I’ll escape notice if I go back, ‘least not right away. So I walk, cross a bridge, maybe a few. Not really sure, but I move from one pool of light to the next, passing hobos and stray cars. Nothing good is out at this hour.
Tired and cold, I head back to the apartment. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll be passed out. But no, not all are. The blond is still awake and hungry. I’m cold, so we have a drink and I let her keep me warm. I mean, after all, that’s what it’s all for, right?
Chicks love a rock star.
Saturday night we do it all again.
After performing, George and the others are nuzzling the girls from last night in a back booth. At the emptier end of the bar, I signal to the bartender for a glass of water. Screaming is havoc on the vocal cords.
I feel her walking towards me before I see her. I brace myself to decline the girl from last night. Hadn’t she given up on me by now?
But when I look over, it’s not the girl with sugar-coated curls. No, this woman is plainly dressed in a simple t-shirt and jacket. Her long straw-colored hair is pulled back at the base of her neck and lies flat, not a hair out of place. This is not a woman trying to attract attention.
Trying or not, she’s got it. Several tall dudes eye her from their groups on the floor. I re-examine her reflection in the bar mirror: her shoulders are broad, and though the coat hides it, I get the feeling her arms are thick. Not in a chunky way, more in a ‘you don’t want to jump me in an alley at night’ way.
She’s definitely a woman, not a girl, based on the unshrinking way she looks at me, as though she’s the one who’s got a grip on this situation, not me, and she doesn’t give a shit what I think. Anxiety clenches in my stomach. Something about her feels familiar.
I look down, hoping she’ll walk past me, because I can feel it; the same ominous doom coming as when the military rep knocked on the door. Mom had been crying a week straight already. After the funeral, in a cemetery tooth-picked with crosses, he handed us a flag. I wonder what good he thought that would do us—that maybe mom could wipe her snot on it?
The woman stops in front of me with her hand on the bar. Guess she doesn’t understand ‘Piss-off,’ when she sees it. Or she doesn’t care, which is scarier.
“Derrick Sanderson?” she asks. I look up. “I’m Corporal Bryant, Cary,” she says offering her hand. I stare at her. She stares right back, waiting. The balls on this lady. I take her hand because that’s the look in her eye; unscrewable.
She gives me a firm handshake, the kind that wakes you up, and takes a seat, signaling the bartender for a beer. She raps her knuckles on the wood and then looks at me. I mean really looks. She gives me the once-over as though trying to merge her understanding with reality. I ignore her, giving off my best ‘Don’t pet the screamer’ vibes. Maybe if I ignore her long enough, she’ll go away, because I have an idea of where this is going.
‘I knew your brother, what a champ…’
The bartender brings her beer. She takes a sip and places it back down, squarely on the coaster, though the rest of the bar is dinged, scuffed, and sticky. Military, dyed in the wool.
“You look nothing like your brother,” she says to the liquor display across from us.
My stomach is already clenched, so there’s no real drop.
“You his girlfriend or something? Ex,” I amend. Blaze can’t date anyone now.
She snorts. “Hardly. He was my Sergeant.”
“Well, he must have been memorable, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
“Oh, he was memorable alright: listened to what you said. Heard what he wanted.”
I smile despite myself. That sounds like Blaze alright. But then I notice her hand trembling on the bottle as she takes a sip. She sets it down carefully. I glance at her sideways. Is this PTSD or something? She seems to have forgotten about me. I had been thinking about leaving, but now I can’t move. She blinks.
“He saved my life,” she says. I stiffen. She looks at me. “He was super annoying about it too, held it over my head. ‘Bryant, clean my boots. Bryant, take my dishes. Bryant, I saved your life, the least you could do is bring me breakfast’.”
She rolls her eyes. “Pain in my ass, ‘cause he was right. So, I looked for ways to pay him back, preferably saving his life so he would shut his damn mouth. And then one night he went on patrol...” She’s silent. I know how this story ends. My chest tightens, trying not to let it in.
“So, what? You thought you’d come here, have a drink with his brother, reminisce, maybe feel better about yourself?” I spit the words like acid. I’ve got nothing left to give.
I expect her to glare at me.
“We all grieve differently,” she says. I feel bad for mocking her, but her presence is like broken glass on an open wound.
“What do you want from me?” I ask, point-blank. She taps her beer softly on the counter, then takes a sip.
“He saved my life, and I have to pay that back somehow. I couldn’t save his, so I went to your parents’ house, the lives who would be most directly wrecked by his death.” She meets my eyes.
“They’re worried about you. You gave up a seat at Bard Conservatory, they haven’t seen you in a year, and this,” she looks at the stacked display of alcohol behind the bar.
“Like you said, everyone grieves differently.” I tip my drink to her.
“It’s been two years,” she says. I finish my drink and stand.
“I don’t need anything from you. People die in war, it’s just what happens. Soldiers are supposed to save each other, when they can. You don’t owe us anything.”
With that, I turn and leave the bar. It had gotten too quiet.
Blaring.
A horn, outside.
WTF?
I lift my head off of the pillow. My neck twinges at the awkward angle. Just past nine in the morning. Who goes around leaning on their horn at nine on a Sunday morning? I put my head back down.
It.
Won’t.
Stop.
I haul myself out of bed and stagger to the window. It’s so bright! Are mornings always this bright? A grey car is parked outside the house the band rents. A woman stands outside of it, leaning on her horn. It’s the woman from last night—Corporal Bryant. She waves when she sees me. How did she—my parents. I know at once. My parents gave her the address. I walk away and let the curtain drop.
She slams on the horn. Damnit!
I crash back, tripping over the mess, and yank open the curtain. I try to yell at her, but my vocal cords are shot and I can only cough, throat too dry.
“What are you doing here?” I croak, but I know it won’t carry.
“You’ve got five minutes to get dressed and get down here. Otherwise, I keep honking,” she calls up, looking me dead in the eye.
I stare at her, mutinous. How dare she come here thinking she can bully me? She raises an eyebrow and leans forward towards the horn. I throw up a hand for her to stop and pull back behind the curtain.
I scramble around the room for a pair of pants and zip a jacket over my bare chest.
“Dude, what the hell is going on,” George asked, his curly brown hair smooshed at a thick right angle. I hop as I work to pull on a worn black sneaker and shake my head. My throat hurts too much to explain anything. I push past him and stumble down the hallway. The door swings shut behind me, the knocker banging with a metal clank like an exclamation point. I march down the front walk. She gets into the car so I have to bend down. The window reflects my wide livid eyes, underscored by the smudged black eyeliner. I look haunted.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, jerking open the door to speak to her when she doesn’t roll the window down. I mean for my voice to sound venomous. It just sounded tired.
“Get in,” she orders.
I give her a death glare, making full use of my horror eyes.
“Look,” she says, “I had a crappy sergeant, which means you had a crappy older brother. But he meant something to you, and I don’t think you’re coping with his loss.”
I knew it. I slam the door shut and turn around, stalking back up to the house. I’m not anybody’s pity project, and my life is none of her damn business.
The horn blares behind me. I freeze. Turning slowly, I meet her eyes. A moment passes between us, a moment in which I understand she will lean on that horn until she’s driven me deaf, which—for a screamo-singer—is saying something.
I get in. She locks the doors, passes me a coffee and a white paper bag. Inside is a croissant. Rolled into the crispy golden crust I see a fringe of ham and burnt cheese oozing out the sides.
“Sit tight,” she says.
“So, I don’t have a choice?” I demand, covering my surprise at the presence of food.
“Nope.” She gives me a look.
“So aggressive,” I mutter.
“Shut up and eat your damn croissant.”
My head pounds, both from last night and the rude wake-up call, and my mouth is dry, so I sip the damn coffee. The warmth and flavor spread through my chest. The throbbing in my head doesn’t break, but the world stops swinging so much and comes into clearer focus.
Whatever, if she feels like spending her money on me, well…my brother did save her life. Blaze’s death might as well have some perks.
The croissant dissolves in my mouth. My stomach—mostly full of alcohol at this point—leaps at the savory flavor of baked ham and melted cheese. It tastes so good. I block out everything else and focused on the private world existing between me and my breakfast. When she pulls to a stop, I look up, curious (despite myself) to see where she’s brought us.
We are parked on the side of a street, a line of storefront fronts on the other side. The road is mostly empty, being so early on a Sunday. We are parked next to a record store.
“Why are we here?” I do my best to fill my voice with scathing, but the raw vocal cords and happy taste buds are wrecking the effect.
“When Blaze found out you were into music, how did he react?”
I refuse to answer her. She gets out of the car. Despite the urge to stay sat, like a petulant child, merely for the sake of pissing her off, I get out. She did bring me breakfast. She locks the car and walks around.
“If you were my sibling, and you told me you were into music, I would have asked: ‘what kind?’ I’m assuming the conversation with Blaze went something more like ‘Bro, totally sweet, you’ll get all the babes,” she parodies, lowing her voice to a rumble.
I look at her, surprised at how close her guess is. Then again, she was in his unit: saw him in the mess hall, the rec hall, no doubt shared a gym. Army people probably get to know each other well when they walk through miles of sand together. I wonder, did he ever talk about me to these people? The thought twists in my gut like a knife.
She really did know Blaze and wasn’t afraid to call him on his shit. Blaze must have loved that—no wonder he harassed her. It almost makes me smile.
“Making it up to a dead man by mocking him? Nice,” I say. She hesitates, a guilty look flashing across her face, but I walk past her, not wanting to see it.
I actually enjoy her ongoing bitter diatribe. To listen to my parents talk, Blaze was some sort of saint, and the few other people I meet who knew Blaze won’t say a word against their bro. Corporal Bryant’s take on him is refreshingly accurate.
I walk in and the smell of dust and old paper greets me. The records are laid out in crates.
“Morning,” the shop owner greets us. I lift a hand and start perusing the stacks while Bryant says hello to the man. I flip through as music plays out in the background, surprised when Bryant leaves me alone and goes looking through records herself.
A new song comes on. It’s well done, a balanced melody introduced in layers. I realize I’m nodding to it. The notes cluster, supported by a rhythmic backbone, until the phrase rises and breaks. It grips my heart. I freeze.
I put the record folder back and look around for a place to escape. It’s too quiet, too much space to actually hear the song, my heart beating in time with it, and the thoughts dripping like a broken faucet at the back of my mind.
When I’m screaming, it wraps me in a callous so thick and violent that nothing gets through. When I’m drinking, the thoughts are drowned, and slipping through the world is endurable. Bur this music is different, closer to the stuff I used to play. With harmony, the world comes into crystal focus: too clear, too real, too raw.
I spot another room attached to the store, but I don’t see any records in this one. I escape into it. Thankfully there are no speakers here, and then I see why. The walls are lined with instruments: saxophones, trumpets, a wide range of guitars all the way to the back. In the front, in the display of the window, is a piano.
I glance back. Bryant is occupied, her back to me. I walk forward and take a seat on the wooden stool. It’s a nice instrument, nothing fancy, but a few steps above utilitarian. I press a few keys, plucking out a melody. It’s like trying to stretch cold muscles; resistance, ache, but also appeal. I keep pushing, my fingers searching for the familiar path, faded now.
“You play?”
I didn’t notice her wander in. The part of me that would have stopped, the part that walked away from her at the bar last night and this morning, is tucked away somewhere now, stomach full, listening to the piano.
“My folks got us both lessons. Blaze stopped as soon as they let him, but I kept going, for a while.” I took the spot at Bard, though I never thought seriously about a career in music until then. It demanded an enormous number of practice hours, a level of dedication and a work ethic new to me. But then Blaze didn’t come back. I dropped out after the first semester.
It was the last thing he said to me, assuming I played those screamo bands he liked. It was one of the only times he saw me, that we found something in common, even though it was a total misunderstanding. But contradicting him by playing other kinds of music, rather than the music Blaze liked, felt like losing the me that he actually saw. Like choosing to walk away from him.
I tinker on a few keys, finding my way through a song I half-remember.
“You’re good,” she says. A grin quirks up my mouth, despite myself. I enjoy the way the notes pile easily together, one sliding into the next.
I glance up and see the question on her face; if I can do this, why do I spend my weekends screaming at people?
Because the music was so loud, and I didn’t have to think about Blaze being gone.
“Why did you leave Bard?” she asks.
“Not my scene. Can you see me in one of those dusty practice halls?” I joke. The thought sends a shiver through me; all that empty space, silence to fill, hours and hours of time I’d have to sit with myself. But now, plunking through the keys, I feel another part of myself stretch and unwind, expand, straining against the tightness in my chest. I miss this.
“Well, you might need to lose the guyliner,” she snorts. I chuckle.
“But yeah, actually, I can.”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Why not? You’re so good.”
I choose not to answer. She watches me with a frown. I ignored her.
“My grandpa and grandma used to go on road trips. They had this RV, traveled all the time— they were hardly ever at home. So when they were it was a big treat, a family reunion, and we’d have a grill-out in their backyard. But most of my memories are of them calling us from Wisconsin, Ontario, San Jose, wherever,” Bryant says. I continue tinkering, weaving the melody, not in perfect time with itself, but the rhythm unfolds around her words.
“When I was six, my gram passed. Then grandpa was always home. He watched sitcoms.”
I glance at her and then back down at my fingers, continuing to feel out the song. If she wants a therapy session, what do I care? I’ve made it clear I’m not a good listener.
“When I asked my mom why he didn’t travel anymore, my mom said, ‘because then he’d have to be with himself, and sometimes people can’t stand their own company. It’s too painful’.”
I miss a note, smashing the wrong keys, and work to cover it. She continues.
“But then one day we got a call from him, in California.” Bryant grins to herself. My eyes flick away when she looks at me, busying myself with the keys. “I asked him if he could stand being with himself again. He said yes, because the further he went away from himself, the more he lost her, my gram.”
She stops. I meet her eyes.
“I think you’re running from yourself, Derrick.”
I finish the song with a shove. Hard notes plunk in protest.
“Why do you think you can just come in here and tell me how to live my life? Huh? You don’t know me,” I say, spitting my words with disdain. “He didn’t come back. That doesn’t mean I need a sister. You think just ‘cause you went to war and survived that gives you some divine insight to how I should live?”
She doesn’t blink.
“No. It means I know what it looks like when someone’s at war.”
I glare at her. She puts up her hands.
“Whatever, it’s your life to throw away. But destroying yourself won’t bring him back, and it’s not keeping him close either.”
She walks away, leaving me alone in a room full of voiceless instruments. My fingers itch over the keys, pushing back the silence. But they move of their own volition now, knitting together the harmony for the words running through my head.
I NEVER ASKED FOR HEROS,
BLACK STARS ALFAME—
FAR AS I CAN SEE—
WON’T STOP THIS SUFFERING
LISTEN, LISTEN, I GUESS WE ALL LET GO
WHEN THE LETTING GO BEATS LIVING
BUT I’LL HOLD ON—BLACK STARS —
FOR ONCE SHUT UP AND LISTEN
IF PAIN KILLS WEAKNESS,
AND WEAKNESS KILLS,
AND ALL THE HEROS BURY IT,
THEN DEATH IS ALL I SEE
THOUGHT YOU WERE STRONGER
THOUGHT I WAS STRONGER
BUT NOW IT’S LET GO TO LIVE
IT’S DEATH TO PAIN, BURY THE FLAME
BLACK STARS BURN OUT,
HEROES IN THE GROUND,
WALK AWAY, AND THEN
WE’LL SEE
P.S.
I realized with chagrin that I was sending this narrative out the day before Easter. At first glance, Screaming in Harmony doesn’t feel in theme with the spring season. Then I realized how appropriate it was: what is Easter but a remembrance of the day a man died for our freedom so that we could live life to the full, as our truest selves. This is a holiday of hope on the other side of darkness, of the conquering of death into eternal life. It’s our choice to receive it or not.
May the grief of your winters find new life in the spring.
May you have a happy Easter.
If you enjoyed this month’s short story and illustrations, please share it with others who enjoy free stories. Keep up with me on Instagram.