The Way Out

Chapter 3

Chapter 3Violet hunched over her laptop on the airplane tray. Thank goodness she’d updated her computer to a lighter and more portable MacBook before the summer ended. She was still getting used to the many features, but the screen enchanted her with how clear it was. In her Buffalo hotel room she’d gotten the night before her flight, she’d downloaded as much as she could about Dis-Chord. She watched one of their early performances now, when they were just breaking into the mainstream popularity they now had a firm hold of. Their song in a blockbuster film was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of their reach and pull.

Dis-Chord had been a band the last twenty years. They started as a small outfit in New York City, playing mostly to the bar scene before taking centre stage, so to speak, in the post-hardcore era. Or maybe it was post-punk era instead. Certainly post something. Violet was still navigating the terminology as she went through their archive of files.

The band’s first album, Fire and Ice, had been critically praised. They followed it up with another one shortly after touring US and Canada; that album, called Panic, had gotten them a professional record deal. Their following one Devil’s Due was professionally made and nominated for a Grammy that year, which they didn’t win. Same with their fourth record, Morning Doves. By the fifth (Decades After) and sixth (Lighthouses), they were still producing critically praised records, but enjoyed only moderate success.

Then this summer, they’d exploded into the public imagination with their song “The Way Out” used in a gangster film and forthcoming on their next record. From what Violet read, the film—Beyond Reason—was most likely going to be nominated for an Oscar. It was historical, filmed in black and white, and was based on a book by the same name by a dead author, so it had all the hallmarks of Oscar bait. The band had been coasting on its popularity and their re-invigorated success with a long tour in the US when their lead singer had been arrested.

Of course, no one in the press knew he was arrested yet.

The band members had played a few shows without him, especially near the end of the tour, and claimed that he was sick. Some of the gossip sites online Violet visited reported that Michael “Mick” Anderson was sick with an STD; possibly even several. Others said that he’d been arrested for drugs. Or that his young wife, a former super-fan he’d married only six months ago when she turned twenty-one, was pregnant and miscarried. There were a lot of stories about what had happened to Mick on the road, especially since Clint, the normal bassist and back-up singer, had stepped up to sing his parts.

Violet put on one of the more recent shows now. She’d already watched the music video for “The Way Out” several times, trying to get a sense of each member, but she’d been more annoyed by the flexing of Mick behind the mic.

Unfortunately, the performances without him weren’t much better. Clint was clearly struggling with the spotlight. He was in the centre stage, his bass around him like a shield, and his voice tense as he sang the chorus for “The Way Out,” barely leaving room to breathe. He fumbled lyrics. Then he seemed to give up and allowed the guitars to blot him out.

Violet winced. She paused the live footage and went to an earlier performance. It was much better, even with Mick’s gesticulating. He liked to run his hand over his crotch, or hump the stereos, every so often. Showmanship, inciting the audience, that kind of thing, but it was still annoying to her. She was relieved that Clint hadn’t decided to do that to blend in, but it was clear he would still need some time to work through his feelings before he could sing again. And sing Mick’s parts convincingly.

Is that the problem? Violet chewed a pen. She had her notebook out with her to record most of her thoughts, but she was still drawing a blank. She didn’t know what Mick had done—so this left her caught in limbo.

Given the fact that Mick was thirty-eight, and he’d married a girl who was twenty-one, she figured he might have been arrested for stat crimes with another fan. She wrote that down and added a question mark. She then turned to a completely blank page. Mick was not her problem right now. She needed to work with the band members who were still standing, and also clearly struggling with their new roles. She went back to an older performance where everyone was doing great, and now tuned out Mick. Then she watched one of the performances, shot on a fan cell phone camera, without him.

Clint was the guy with the shock of red in his beard she’d witnessed before. He was the tallest member of the band, standing at least six feet four inches. His shoulders were wide, but his face was thin. He looked as if he could have been a football player but was too gentle to tackle anyone. In his better performances, he strummed the base carefully and delicately. His backing vocals were soft. And he smiled a lot. He clearly enjoyed music and doing what he was doing. When she read the bio about him, half-pieced together from Wikipedia and another half from the band’s manager, Darla, she discovered Clint was married. For at least seven years. She looked at the footage again, noticed he kept his ring on when he played, and figured that was a good sign. If Mick had done something with fans, she hoped that Clint was not a part of it.

The drummer was the other red-haired man of the group; fittingly, he was often called Red by other band members. His real name was Joseph Robert Henderson Abernathy the third, so Red was a nice nickname to avoid the mouthful of a surname. She also noted that he went by Joe, or Joey, in some interviews. She knew that many names were often a sign of love; someone called you, and repeated calling you, only expanding on their affection. She took this as a good sign, since, he was the drummer and there wasn’t much else on him. His performances stayed fairly static between videos. He was a plain looking guy, especially with the shock of red hair on his head, and everything else being average. She tried to find a live interview that featured him, but all the ones she had were with Mick and Clint, and sometimes, their guitarist, Lucien DuPont.

Lucien.

Violet drew in a deep breath. He was the easiest one to recognize from the earlier photo, since he was the small guy. In one of their earlier performances, he wore a suit that made him look like a boy at a bar mitzvah. Again, he was normal height—on par with Red—but he hunched. His guitar made him hunch. In every one of their performances, the older ones with Mick or the more recent ones on the road, Lucien acted the same. He swayed with his guitar, head banged, and otherwise kept to his part of the stage. He acted a lot like Red, insofar as he seemed difficult to peg down in his quiet, but she realized he was responsible for many of the lyrics. Everyone in the band shared song writing credits, but in interviews, he and Mick often played off one another when interviewers asked about inspiration for this song and that one. Mick was a chatterbox, but Lucien interjected every so often. Clint answered questions about the road, their tour life, and things like that with Mick, but it was Lucien who talked about creation.

“I think song writing is deeply tied to our s****l energy as people,” he said in one interview. His voice was soft, yet his dark eyes were piercing. “When we create something, it’s an expression of our energy. I think a lot of our songs come from that energy that emerges when we create from the core of ourselves, which I think is our desire.”

Mick went on an added something about being inspired by the beautiful ladies of the town they were in—but Lucien didn’t echo him. Violet went to make a note about this but had no idea what to write. She added, Desire? with a question mark, and then looked at Lucien again. There was something about him that tugged at her. Was he like Mick, or did his own desire differentiate him? If the band’s songs were all about desire, too, how on earth were they going to come back from something as devastating as this?

Violet sighed once again. This is too much. She curled her own dark hair around her ears and surveyed her notes. This was what she was here for. This was her specialty, whether she—or they—liked it or not. Time to suck it up.

She wrote a few notes, but soon turned on a performance of the band again. She had to admit, “The Way Out” was a good song. Sexy even, yes. She found a live performance of it without Mick and allowed herself to be pulled into its rhythm. Lucien’s movements to the music were so much like her own. His dark hair was long and combed over, making him look like a slick man pulled from one of the gangster films they were now part of. Lucien became a man from another time, as far back as the prohibition era, while the two redheads went even farther back, and turned to Norse soldiers. When she examined the lyrics to their songs, she noted how often they exploited those exact metaphors. There was a lot about ships going out to sea; lighthouses on the pier; and then the desperation of a drink on payday. There were also basic songs, about love and s*x and revenge; while all fairly typical, they were now much harder to listen to given Mick’s crimes.

Violet was in the middle of reading through the lyrics for “The Way Out” when she noticed someone by her on the plane. A man, his hair long and dark and combed over, smiled at her. His dark eyes were familiar.

Lucien.

“Hello,” he said slowly. His voice was lilted a bit with a French accent, something she’d not heard in the interviews. He extended his hand. “I take it you’re Violet. From Alternative You?”

“Um. Yes. I…” She shook his hand, his warm and soft hand, but was still flustered. “I’m not sure how you realized this. I don’t know what to say.”

Lucien gestured to her laptop, and then to his seat a few rows behind her. “I kept seeing my own face on your laptop. Or some of our music videos. I figured you were either Violet or a super fan. Either way, I figured I’d say hello. If you weren’t Violet, I’d make someone’s day.”

“Oh. Wow.” Violet baulked under his smile. How had she not noticed? She’d been so consumed with her own damn notes and action plans that she’d completely skipped over her exact subject. Oh, she was not going to do a good job at this, was she?

“Don’t worry,” Lucien said. “If you’d prefer that I not introduce myself yet, or wait for the band, I don’t mind. I can go back to my spot.”

“I’m…I’m surprised you’re not in first class. Aren’t all rock stars in first class?”

He considered this with a small tilt of his head. “Not always. Planes are never comfortable for me, so sometimes I’d just rather get the cheap seats and wait it out.”

“I hear that. I stayed in Buffalo overnight to save a couple hundred.”

“The company’s not reimbursing you?”

Violet bit her lip. They probably were, but her habits on saving every last penny were engrained beyond recognition. It was one of the main reasons why she and Melanie had gotten along so well so quickly. Their personalities were completely different, but they both knew how to save a buck.

“Either way, can I buy you a drink?” Lucien asked. “You know, as a good faith gesture? I really appreciate you coming. I think we’re all going to need your services.”

The way he said services made Violet thrill inside—then rebel against it. What did he mean? And why wasn’t he in LA, like she thought he would be. When she asked him as much, he shrugged. “Business in the state to take care of. Nothing to worry about.”

Yet she wanted to worry. She still didn’t have all the facts in this arrangement, and when she wasn’t searching them out herself by watching old concert footage, she was desperate for more instruction. Before she could say anything else, though, the seat belt light came on above their heads. He watched it with a sigh and a smile. “I’ll talk to you soon enough, Violet. It was lovely to meet you. Too bad it’s under these circumstances.”

“Yes. Same.” She gave him her hand again. They shook, and for a moment, something else passed between them. As Lucien went back to his seat, Violet put a hand over her chest. Her heart was pounding. The person next to Violet was sleeping—had been ever since she brought out her laptop—and she’d never been more relieved than this moment. She buckled up and readied herself for some turbulence. They still had another hour and a half until landing. That was at least long enough for another concert viewing.

When the drink came to her from the flight attendant a moment later, she didn’t need to ask who it was from. She accepted it with a whispered thank you to the attendant. Then she turned around to greet Lucien. He was on an aisle seat, just like her. He held a glass of wine in a plastic cup, just like her. He held it in the air and offered a silent cheers between them.

Cheers, Violet thought as she also raised her cup. She pressed it to her lips to sip. As the warmth radiated through her, she realized this was exactly what she’d wanted for her birthday.