Nirvana

Apologies for the long wait. This is the sixth chapter of Nirvana.

All previous chapters are relevant but this can be fitting as a stand-alone story.

As always, your ratings and comments (positive and negative) are always appreciated and keep me going. I would love to hear what you think and I welcome tips and suggestions.

Enjoy and keep an eye out for chapter seven!

*****

It was never clear what it was exactly that brought upon the radical change to Owen's mood, subsequently the rest of the band. There was a series of successive events which collided together to finally burst. Owen had his recurring dream where he was performing naked, and his guitar had no strings, then he woke up with a banging headache. There was a pungent smell of beer in their kitchen which made him sick, the toaster was broken, and to make matters worse, there were no headache tablets. He also got a memo that the sound engineer working the same night as theirs at Coverfield was one that he knew. He'd worked with him before, and they had a misunderstanding which resulted in the guy telling him he'll never make it so long as he's alive, and that he'll personally make sure of it.

Carl came unprepared, and had the audacity to describe the setlist as tasteless. He didn't say that it "sucked", he didn't say that it was "crap", no; tasteless was the word he used, which angered Owen severely. They switched and swapped some songs, scribbled some out, and added some more, wasting most of the day without practice. However, the final nail in the coffin in which Owen's composure lay indefinitely, was David holding a toothpick between his teeth. It was then that he knew for a fact they've lost it, with David, being the glue that held the band together, giving in to his urges, and letting panic take over.

"What do you call a drummer with half a brain?" Carl tried to lighten the mood during one of their mandatory breaks, but no one even blinked.

"Still better than Ringo."

David smiled, but Owen looked murderous.

"I hope you're not being serious," he said, "because you'd know, if you listened to one record, that he revolutionised drumming, and insulting him only means you know nothing about The fucking Beatles."

"Chill, O, it's a joke."

"You don't see me laughing, do you?"

All three of them took turns snapping, like Newton's Cradle, with one occasionally being in the centre, taking hits from both ends. Carl decided he wasn't going to joke any longer, doing his best to remain passive in Owen's screaming face. At the end of the day, when they retreat to their respective rooms, Carl would take to skateboarding. He downed three beers, one of those nights, and skateboarded in a dimly lit street. It only took a few minutes for him to fall on his outstretched hand, which then swelled up twice its size the next day.

Owen lay in his bed every night, obsessively and religiously listening to the tracks they were supposed to play, trying to find some solace in the whole situation. Noel was supposed to visit him as he said he would, but there was no sign of the guy. He needed him; his guidance, to help contain his anxiousness and extinguish, or further fuel, his conflagration.

"Noel, where are you." He sighed, almost like a prayer, and it was answered the next morning. Noel wasn't planning to see him; he was just out on his usual hike to Norvin Green, when he found himself straying off his normal route towards the familiar house in the distance, and standing outside an open window. Owen was sitting on the sofa with a guitar in his arms, strumming randomly but confidently as he knew, or believed, that there was no one around to hear.

Noel never minded a detour. He would usually go wherever the road, the wind, or even fate took him. And, standing there, he was nothing but grateful. He couldn't have caught him at a more perfect time. He quickly flipped through his sketchbook to a blank page, and tried to capture the scene before him, as Owen strummed and chanted 'let it be, let it be' with his early morning sonorous voice giving Noel a draining chill of wistfulness. He could only delineate so much before he got titillated by the curve of Owen's lips. He put his sketchbook back, and left just as he came, lacking motives and direction.

The day of their long anticipated gig was not going as planned. They had only a few hours before they'd go on stage, but they were yet to practise one song with no mistakes from start to finish. Owen's mind was already set that it was going to be a horrid experience, and all he had to do was slowly accept it. David started getting ready, but Carl stayed behind, saying he needed a word with Owen. Before he even said anything, Owen knew what he wanted. He'd been expecting it for days, but just didn't know Carl would wait until the last minute to pull out on backing vocals.

"I'm sorry, man."

"It's fine."

It wasn't fine. Carl was taken aback by Owen's supposed level-headedness, he expected him to react in many ways but calmly wasn't one of them.

"You sure? I mean, we can always record a few mixes. Get the sound guy to play them instead."

"It's fine. Just get out."

"Or, I was thinking, we could get the audience involved."

"Get out!" He shouted, "Get the fuck out right now if you want your jaw to stay intact."

There was no further arguing. He left him to wallow in his vortex of a thousand worst case scenarios. It would have been slightly better if Carl dropped out on singing without giving him any other options, but it seemed that incapacitating him wasn't enough so he had to put the final icing on the cake. His best ideas were to either turn it into a karaoke night, or trust the sound engineer to not see it as a chance to mar their performance given on a silver platter. Owen picked up the nearest cushion and screamed into it.

What went through Carl's head, while David was wrapping a bandage around his swollen wrist, was that he should have chosen vocals over bass. Moving his fingers was excruciating, and he couldn't make a fist if his life depended on it.

"This reminds me of the first night I installed fast internet."

"It needs to be in a cast."

"Then I won't be able to play. O's already jumping down my throat about backing vocals, and I haven't told him about this. I don't know what's gotten into him. I think he threatened to punch me earlier."

"Sorry." He yanked the band tighter, and Carl flinched. "Sorry."

"Just need to get through tonight."

"I tell you what's gotten into him." He made a subtle nod at Noel, walking towards their front porch. Noel gazed curiously at Carl's injured hand, so Carl waved it in his direction.

"Wild date last night." He said.

"Can you still play?"

Carl snorted, "Fuck knows."

"Have you lost sensation?"

"I wish! I'd call off the gig and stay in bed. Try on the stranger."

David rolled his eyes, "How many masturbation jokes are you gonna make?"

"Loads."

Noel looked through the window at the sofa, which he imagined to be Owen's designated area for a reason beyond him, as if days hadn't passed, and Owen didn't move; he just sat there playing beautiful tunes, calling out for voyeurs and lost souls.

"He's in the basement," Carl said, "I wouldn't go, though. He's having a meltdown."

Owen sat on the floor with his back against the wall and guitar on his lap, practising chords with shaking hands without actually strumming. Two of his fingers had open blisters which he covered with tissue and secured with cellotape, and his arm was aching, but these were the least of his worries. He recognised Noel's torrid scent as he usually did, and immediately felt a weight lifted off his shoulders. For the first time in days, he smiled.

Noel sat close to him on the floor casually, like he belonged there. He didn't offer to hold him, and he didn't offer a reason why he hadn't reached out the past few days, or even why he showed up, but Owen found it hard to care. He enjoyed his closeness and his healing hand over his back moving up and down as if they knew exactly where he needed to be touched.

"How's the Rock Star doing?"

Owen grimaced, suddenly remembering the train-wreck of a performance he thought they were about to have. "We're going to fuck up so bad." He proceeded to tell him how horrible everything was with belligerent anger that made his neck veins engorge and his face turn red, and Noel listened to his rants and tribulations, unable to take his eyes off him. How sweet he looked -how innocent.

"Failure is only a state of mind."

"Is it? When people throw piss bottles at us, that's textbook failure."

"They won't." He snickered, "Don't stress yourself out. All of this is a drop in the ocean."

Owen sighed and shimmied closer to be engulfed in Noel's embrace. He asked him not to stop, not specifying what. Touching, talking, breathing, or simply being there, anchoring him to serenity.

"We'll all return to Earth one day, even the audience that you're so scared of."

It sounded like a good technique, imagining the audience dead. He thought it would work better than picturing them naked or on the toilet.

"You're doing just fine." He grabbed his chin between his fingers, and Owen's lips, raw from all the biting, parted in earnest. The bruise had healed, and his skin turned back to its pallid state, but Noel wasn't interested at that moment in marking him as much as he wanted to ease his distress and draw all the negative vibrations away from his aura. He locked their lips together, and Owen's body trembled in his arms like that of a purring cat, so he deepened their kiss, with his hand pushing at the back of Owen's head, fingers disappearing in his raven hair, messing up his hairdo which he spent half an hour trying to fix, but it didn't matter. He wanted him to ruin his hair -he'd let him ruin his whole life if he asked.

Owen's cheaply bandaged fingertips brushed against Noel's cheek, and Noel twitched at the unusual texture and stopped abruptly. He felt sorry for his ever so tiny injuries, and started kissing his fingers including the ones that didn't have any calluses on them.

"Do we have time?"

Before Owen could answer, there was a knock on the door, and a sound from behind it shouting "Ten minutes!" Owen gasped, jerked, and stood up in a second.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god!"

"You'll be fine." He held him by the shoulders to stop him from pacing and fidgeting, "No matter what happens you'll be fine. And we'll celebrate regardless."

It wasn't fine. Fine was not a word Owen would use to describe what had happened that night. It would be something along the lines of abysmal, irredeemable, or disastrous. They started off strong with Helter Skelter, hoping they could engage the audience. However, it didn't work despite it having been the only song where they didn't make any mistakes. From then on, Carl found it difficult to move his hand as fast as he should have so he played about a beat and a half behind, and David dragged to stay in tempo, while Owen tried to shoot death glares at them surreptitiously. Carl couldn't see him, or anything for that matter. He would turn around between songs, grip his hand and grunt as tears of pain welled up in his eyes.

Two songs in, they'd already lost the audience who had started to talk over them so loudly that Owen had to sing louder and thus lost control over his notes. The sound engineer had so much fun turning up the bass and drums when he noticed their discord, and Owen couldn't hear himself. Ridicule and derision then followed. Some people shouted, some banged their glasses against their tables, they rudely requested they'd "stick with pop" or "turn that shit down".

They were just done with the penultimate song, which was supposed to be a fun, tongue-in-cheek cover of Maxwell's Silver Hammer but Owen couldn't see any humour in it anymore, when someone yelled "who are those clowns" loud enough for everyone to hear and break into laughter. Owen thought he'd had enough, and made an irrational decision to leave.

"One song left." Carl whispered with a frown.

"Do it yourself, then. I'm done."

It was grim and ominous outside, and the air was asphyxiating. They loaded their gear in David's van, Noel helping poor one-handed Carl, but mainly he just wanted to stand between him and Owen as they gave each other passive-aggressive stares like a ticking time bomb. David dealt with the night coordinator who gave them their money two hundred dollars short, on the grounds that they didn't perform a full set.

"It was one song that we skipped."

"'Tis what it is, man."

David begrudgingly took the money and sat on the pavement with Noel, sorting the money along with what they got in their tip jar into three equal piles, discarding a few notes with phone numbers or crass comments written on them. Owen slammed the van doors shut with a loud bang that Carl couldn't ignore.

"Don't break the doors just because you fucked up."

Floodgates opened with that. Owen got in his face and shouted, "I fucked up? Me?"

They broke into a fit of relentless profanity and abuse, each talking over the other, challenging, berating, and threatening. Carl said it was Owen's fault for doing the gig in the first place, picking such weak songs, going unprepared, and then storming off stage in a puerile tantrum. He said the only way to save face was by having a solo acoustic two-song encore. Owen knew he was right, but he'd be damned if he gave him the satisfaction, so he retaliated saying how much of an incompetent musician he was, and that it wouldn't have gone badly if he'd stayed in tempo and provided backing vocals. All of this was said in the most uncivilised way imaginable, interjected by streams and steams of vile vulgarity that made Noel's skin crawl.

"Should we do something?"

"Nah, leave them to it."

It was Owen who attacked first. He forced his palms against Carl's ribs and shoved him three feet back. Carl regained his balance, closed the distance between them in an instant, and took a swing at Owen's face which he ducked to evade, luckily for Carl as the daft child swung with his injured hand. Owen had him in headlock and pushed his back against the van, Carl kneed him in the kidneys repeatedly. All the while, the stream of obscenities didn't cease to flow.

"David?"

"For crying out loud!" David spat his toothpick, pocketed the money, and darted at them followed by Noel. He untangled them by pulling Carl away, and Noel stood in Owen's face when he attempted to run at Carl again, and regarded him with a look of reproach and warning, masking his unwavering need to wrap him in his arms. He had no idea sweet innocent Owen had the capacity for violence.

"He started it!" Carl bellowed.

"I don't care who started it, I'm not your mother. Now, you two," he grabbed Carl by the shirt and hauled him to the back of the van, then gave Owen the same treatment, "you're gonna stay right here until we get to Devils. You can get along like mature adults, or you can continue your slap fight like little girls. I don't fucking care! I'm sick of you two. Noel, let's go."

They were silent for half the journey, each one seated on a box on the opposite end of the other and looking at their feet. Owen knew he said the most callous things out of the two of them, and despite feeling each word he said was well deserved, he still wanted to be the first one to make peace, and not to just break the awkward silence.

"Sorry I called you a talentless prick."

"Sorry I called you a diva."

It wasn't the worst thing Owen had said, and Carl wasn't genuinely sorry, and they both knew that but both decided to let it go and move past it.

"What does George Harrison say to his guitar while it gently weeps?"

Owen hummed.

"Don't fret."

Owen laughed sarcastically with an eye roll, but it put him in a better mood that lasted up until the moment he was accosted by Noel's friends at Jersey Devils. One of them was, of course, Jay with his ragged shirt and unwashed hair and gleam in his eyes whenever he looked at Noel. The other was introduced as Jacob, and Owen could recall seeing him before because he owned or ran the bar. Something about him screamed power and superiority. He sat with his legs and arms crossed, bossed waiters around, dominated every conversation and had a loud, roaring laughter. He was inquisitive about the band quite condescendingly, asking if they "aspire for something bigger than being a bar band." Although he addressed Owen, he only got a forced smirk out of him and David had to respond out of politeness.

"We haven't been in the city for very long, but we got a great head start, you know, we're regulars here, and we don't turn down any offers from other bars. I'd say we're doing well so far regarding our career."

"Ah. Bar hopping is hardly a career, ya know."

Owen's blood reached boiling point with that dismissive, humiliating remark; he couldn't control his indignation any longer so he blurted out, "We've actually been contacted by a scout from Saddle Creek Records."

"Saddle what?"

"Creek. In Nebraska. Do you know Tim Kasher from Cursive?"

Jacob looked at Jay in amusement, "What the heck does any of this mean?" He then exploded in laughter in a way that would embarrass him if he had any sense of self-awareness. Everyone had to give a forced courtesy smile -even Jay's smile looked more like a sneer. When Jacob wasn't looking in his direction, Owen made a loose fist and moved it from side to side and Carl nearly spat out his drink.

There was a faint touch under the table. Long, bony fingers were placed gently on Owen's thigh and then squeezed. When he got his attention, Noel mouthed "You okay?" to which Owen mouthed "Not really." Even though he and Jay have slightly bonded over their hatred for Jacob, he couldn't help but detest how closely, nearly inseparably, he sat next to Noel. He even wondered if Noel had his other hand on Jay's thigh, or if the vivacious bastard had his hand on Noel's.

Not okay; not at all, but thanks for asking.

It was open mic night at the bar, which meant the bands that played weren't good enough to get hired, and the one playing then was no exception. Owen busied himself with scrutinising their performance. Drummer played the 2/4 in a 4/4 song, guitarist spent more time fixing his top knot than checking his tuning, and the vocalist singing a cover of a cover, got herself stuck on a note which wasn't her strongest. The bassist, however, was the only one on stage that knew what he was doing, and Owen having spent the previous few weeks practically teaching Carl how to play, was enthralled by how perfectly that bassist played. He definitely stood out, which was rare for a bassist, and not because of his height, gauntness, or purple Mohawk and piercings, but his skill.

They got to the chorus, and Purple Mohawk sang. The lead singer was singing out of tune, so he changed his key with so much dexterity in order to sing in harmony and rectify the situation. Owen had to have him join his band. He didn't feel so bad about it because that band was doomed to fail. They seemed like an odd bunch; they lacked unity and chemistry, and the bassist was simply too good for them. Oh, he had to have him.

"Where are you from anyway?"

The question cut off Owen's train of thought and he jerked to full attention. His neck nearly snapped when he looked at Jacob and then Carl. Carl had the same affable smile he always had whenever anyone asked him that question.

"I'm from New Jersey."

"That's what they all say." He leaned over at Jay, again, and broke into the same familiar obnoxious laughter.

Owen slammed his hand on the table and stormed off, because if he'd stayed to hear any more of his drivel, he would end up physically attacking him and lose his job. Possibly also go to jail and have his father bail him out. Not worth it. Maybe a bit of cold water on his face would help him contain his rage.