Wednesday Nite
″‘Work sucks,’” sang Herb, as he threw his keys down among the empty wrappers and used napkins on the counter, which took up about 1/3 of their tiny kitchen.
”‘I know,’” responded Nate, who didn’t peel his eyes away from the screen, even when the gust of cold air hit him from Herb’s entrance. It was one of those Minnesota afternoons in which February invaded the lobby, and by 4 pm was already seeping under the entry door of every crappy ground-floor apartment, including Herb and Nate’s.
“How’s the campaign?” Herb asked, sitting in a second-hand Ikea chair with a practice pad and sticks.
“The world is frozen,” said Nate, “but the armies of Etan are red-hot. With blood. And lust, I think, but the game doesn’t track that stat.”
Herb blew into his hands and began to slap out some slow paradiddles and rolls on his pad; any drummer could hear the icy lack of feeling in his fingers. Nate looked away from the game for the first time, glancing at the pad and sticks, and then up at Herb’s clean-shaven face.
”My game’s all made of blood and lust/But this next raid is going to just/Make you afraid—” Herb sang out in an improvised falsetto.
“No,” said Nate. “You are not warming up for this gig. There is no gig.”
”There’s a gig, bro/It ain’t big, bro—”
“Stop it. It is minus twenty-four outside. In the sun. We are not getting in that cold-ass van and unloading in the tiny-ass entryway to the empty-ass Durf Club. No. Way.”
Herb ramped up his sticking, as if his internal metronome had clicked up. His glasses were still fogged from outside, but a smile had crept onto his face. “We are, though. I just had the worst day at work. Traffic’s up because everyone’s inside with the deep freeze. Servers and redundant servers failing all day.” He emphasized this with a quick four-stroke roll; Nate could almost hear his hands thawing out. “We told the guy we’re good to go. I’m good to go.”
“But the campaign—”
“I’ll buy you Arby’s on the way over.”
“OK.”
Two hours later, Nate leaned into the microphone, addressing the concrete floor lit by what appeared to be only two and a half CFL bulbs. “We’re The Quintessentials, and thanks for coming out tonight. This first song’s dedicated to you, my man.” He pointed at the custodian-cum-barkeep, a shadow with a broomstick across this way, almost out of reach of the lights. He leaned into the handle like a microphone, pointing back at Nate. “I love you too!” he shouted. “And you!” he continued, pointing at Herb with the broomstick. The three men laughed. They were the only people in the place.
It was still easy to lose themselves into their first song. Herb played keys with one hand, and drums with the other three limbs; Nate played guitar or saxophone, depending on the song, and sang. With no one to watch, they played fast and added fills in every spot, and were going full steam when an cloud of cold air hit the stage.
The place was so poorly lit that Nate could barely make out a group of people at the bar. Why was it a mass of people when there literally could not be more room to spread out? Was he missing something? Then, as the song wound down, a few individuals made their way towards the stage, and Nate’s brain could not quite process what he saw, though possibly because he was trying to continue to take this sax part to another level. It was the unmistakable walk of a woman in a short cocktail dress. Her thighs and cheeks bore the signature burn of the Minnesota air, and she was signaling for her crew to get closer to the stage. The song ended as the woman turned toward the mass at the bar.
“Rachel, there’s a band here! WHOOOO-hooo!” She raised her plastic cup to the ceiling.
Rachel also walked/slid over the red concrete toward the stage, and promptly dropped her cup on the floor. She was tall, with long brown hair, and her eyes shone under the two-and-a half bulbs with a sort of—
“Oh boy,” he heard Herb say away from the microphone.
Rachel reached out like a grizzly snagging a salmon and grabbed the first girl’s arm. “You got me a band, Cindy? Oh shit! Oh shit! You are my best fucking friend! I fucking love this! I hoped there’d be, like, music, but fucking this—” The drink spilled all over her sash—
“It’s a bachelorette party,” said Herb.
“It’s my best friend’s fucking bachelorette party!” This was a new girl—short blond hair, same wind-burned skin (They went out like that? Tonight? Nate wondered). She wild eyes. “She’s getting married tomorrow because she’s a bitch and she got a deal on the most beautiful fucking venue in Hider Falls and we all took off work for the week and her husband’s the nicest fucking guy I’ve ever seen and oh my God PLAY SOMETHING WE CAN DANCE TO!” Now the formerly empty floor was filled with overdressed women. Their bartender friend was in the shadows, suddenly making drinks frantically.
“Ladies, welcome to the Durf Club,” said Nate. “Let’s play something you can dance to.”
Two hours later, the dance floor was nearly empty, save for slicks of spilled alcohol, and a few women’s fancy shoes. The stage, though, was full, as Nate and Herb chugged through another four-on-the-floor improvisation, drenched in sweat. And not just their own sweat.
Two women danced frenetically in front of Herb’s kit. A third pumped her fist in the air, hitting his crash cymbal with a giant blow-up penis. The first woman—Cindy?—had her hands in Herb’s greasy hair as he played. Several feet in front, Rachel and two other friends danced—well, as only women at a bachelorette party can dance. They were a gorgeous blur of purple sequins, green fabric, women’s deodorant, and shiny, flying earrings. Nate kept a three-chord romp going, his hands so slick with sweat that it was a miracle his fingers didn’t fly off the fretboard. And if they had, the two pair of delicate underwear now hanging from the headstock might have at least dried them off.
Carefully, so he wouldn’t hit anyone’s whirling head, Nate stuck the guitar neck up so Herb could see that it was time for the finish. The women’s shouts were louder than Herb’s cymbals. When Nate turned to face the empty bar, he noted that the bartender was making out with one of Rachel’s bachelorettes, and that condensation was running freely down the windows.
“Oh my fuck, Jesus Christ in a sidecar, THIS IS THE BEST MUSIC ANYONE HAS EVER HEARD!” Rachel shouted into the mic, to the deafening approval of her crew.
Nate played a little run to punctuate her proclamation. When he turned to look at Herb, Cindy was pulling his hair back while another woman readied a shot to pour into his mouth.
“But now, ladies, we have to go. It’s midnight, and we’ve got our next stop to—”
“Bring these guys with!” shrieked Cindy, who had let Herb’s hair go. Herb was now trying to both process the cheap vodka he’s just drank and formulate an objection. “I’ve—I’ve got work—” he began.
“You do have work to do,” interrupted Rachel. Her hand was on her hip as she stood next to Nate, and again, her eyes shone. Nate was starting to think that wasn’t the lights that made her eyes do that. “Your job is to come with us.”
Herb tried to protest. “We’ve got to load up—”
“Ladies,” she said, no longer shouting. With no one else in the club, it was possible to hear every word. “We’re going to load up these guys’ equipment in their van. Then, we go meet my dad for some food.”
“Wait, what?” said Herb, right before Cindy grabbed his hair again, and placed her lips on his, to the cheers of the women.
An hour later, Herb leaned over to Nate. “Okay, dude, I know I’m the one who insisted we leave the aparment tonight. But this is—”
“OhmyGod,” Nate said, eyes closed. Herb, though seated right next to him, could have been in another galaxy. Every bite of the ribeye steak elicited another blasphemous proclaimation, regardless of Herb’s attempts to talk. How could it not? It was transcendant. It was tender and red and juicy, but that in no way could begin to describe the lushness of it. It was salt and fat and glory.
“Dude, I have to work in four hours, and I may be in a food coma for a week. It’s a freaking Wednesday. Actually, Thursday. What happened?!” Herb was done with his steak, and the magic must have been wearing off for him.
He looked up, chewing, savoring. The cathedral ceilings allowed the women’s laughter and stories and oaths to bounce around the city’s finest steakhouse, which was apparently open until 3 am if you were Rachel and you were getting married tomorrow. Also, apparently, if you were in a sweat-soaked Pixies long-sleeve, you could eat here without question as long as you were escorted in by a gaggle of handsy, beautiful women dressed to the nines. The women splashed more drinks and spilled desserts and occasionally rubbed Nate and Herb’s necks and arms, like good-luck charms. But everything seemed tangential to this ribeye, at least for Nate. So much so that when he opened his eyes again, the women were clapping and cheering, and Nate didn’t immediately see why.
“Daddy!” shouted Rachel, standing to greet a man who looked like George Clooney with a snow-white beard and glasses. He took a seat at the head of the table, thankfully far away from Nate and Herb.
“So glad you could make it to dinner, girls,” he said. His voice seemed to cut through the din—maybe through the whole evening. Nate swallowed and sat up.
“And who are your friends, sweetheart?” Now the food seemed to coil in Nate’s stomach. He thought he heard Herb trying to duck under the table. Dad’s face, all warmth and benevolence at the sight of his daugher’s friends, steeled a bit. Nate felt like he might end up paying for this steak, perhaps with his testicles.
“Daddy,” she said, “this is Nate and Herb. The Durf Club was the only place we could find with live music tonight, since it’s so cold out. And these guys were playing there, and they were awesome, and I wanted to bring them along!”
The bachelorette party’s cheers at this, though, were a bit sober and sudued. Nate could feel Herb shrinking next to him. He could only smile stupidly at his plate. They’d done nothing wrong, but in the presence of someone like Rachel’s dad, that detail seemed irrelevant.
In the painful silence, a young man set down a steak and highball in front of Dad, the white glove placing it perfectly in front of him. He did not look up or change his expression, but offered a quiet “Thank you, Mikkel.”
“Daddy?” asked Rachel, stopping her expensive-looking drink halfway up to her lips.
“I’m just thinking,” he said. Again, Nate could only look down at his plate.
“I was thinking that I had a little three-piece band in my youth,” he said, a smirk coming to his face. “Those were some of the best times I ever had. I’ll bet,” he began, raising his own drink, “that when this party continues at my lake home after this, Rachel will want you two gentlemen to keep playing right through the dawn hours. Because my girl’s never been one for sleep. Even as a baby.”
As a chorus of “Aaaaaws!” swept the table, Nate could feel Herb’s objection coming, but before he could, the Godfather (as Nate had begun to think of him) asked, “So are you full-time musicians? I wish sometimes that I had pursued that dream.”
“Actually, sir,” said Herb, his voice higher than usual, “we both work for an IT firm.”
The man raised an eyebrow as he chewed a piece of steak. The women went back to laughing and shouting again, but the Godfather’s voice still cut through the clamor. “Ah, I’m involved in a few local IT ventures by way of business management. Who do you gentlemen work for?”
Before Nate could signal to Herb not to ruin the evening by talking about work, Herb piped up. “Stackdump. I run support for—”
The Godfather interrupted with laughter. “You work for Stackdump?”
“Yes,” said Herb, “and I actually have to be at work in a few hours, so—”
“My boy, I own Stackdump. And if Rachel wants you to come break the windows on my lake home for the rest of the night and/or morning—well, then, you won’t be at work tomorrow. How does two weeks’ paid vacation sound?”
Herb smiled. The roar of the party pitched higher, and Nate laughed.
“Sir, that sounds like a fantasy.”
Nate started to smile, but Rachel grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer. “Get another drink, get dessert, and get a few espressos, because the night is young, and it’s my bachelorette party.” The light in the steakhouse—so different from the light in the Durf Club—could not dim that ferocious light in her eyes.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.