Chapter Text
The apartment was small, all plaster and wood, and drafts crept in like spiders. Robert zipped up his hoodie on his way in. Cigarette smoke and takeaway grease had sealed themselves into the upholstery of Carol’s peeling, marker-graffitied couch. The walls leaked old cologne. Carol had dressed them in posters from movies Robert had never seen, bands he’d certainly never heard of, setlists from concert after concert. Her dedication was no doubt impressive. (Robert had pointed briefly at one of the band posters to ask where it came from.
“Don’t touch that,” Carol had said hastily.
“Why not?”
“There’s a hole there.” Carol had fiddled uncomfortably with her sleeve. “If my landlord finds out, she’ll be pissed.”)
It was not a pleasant home. Robert amused himself with the thought that, had Carol set foot in his apartment, she might’ve hissed and shielded her eyes. But it was undeniably a home. There was something irresistible about the knowledge that this was a place in which somebody lived. The corners of the posters curled inward like so many leaves. They nestled against and atop their faded brethren, burying their dead, nurturing the ghosts among them. The couch was falling apart, swollen with the most mundane kind of love until it was ready to burst at the seams. Its scent may have been off-putting, but there was a part of Robert that couldn’t get enough of it.
Carol had told him to make himself comfortable. He was just about to oblige when a guitar on the couch, right next to where he’d planned to sit, drew his attention. Its strings were fresh and bright. Against its scraped, dented body, tattooed with stickers and permanent marker, they shone brilliantly. Robert looked up to make sure Carol wasn’t watching him. She’d disappeared into another room. The coast was clear. Knowing this, then, he picked up the guitar by its neck and plucked a single string.
Oh, shit. He hadn’t thought an acoustic guitar could be that loud. Robert’s head darted up again. Carol definitely heard that. He paused. Listened. Waited. 3, 2, 1…
When Carol didn’t come charging in to admonish him, he continued.
Robert settled the guitar into his arms and tried to remember some of the rudimentary chords he’d learned from grammar school. He knew they had the names of letters, and that there were things called flat chords and minor chords and maybe something called a sharp, and that some of them hurt to play. He sat on the arm of Carol’s couch so he could think. Robert found the impulsive courage to finagle with a series of different chords. Some were more difficult than others. He was trying to play something he’d heard on the radio once. A few times. More than a few times. Damn it. Playing a capo was hard. He was better off doing it one string at a time. Whose idea was it to—
“Oh, my God,” Carol said from the bathroom, “Robert, is that you playing fucking ‘Wonderwall’?”
He paused to laugh aloud, regained his composure, then continued. “Today—“
“No. That’s it. No.” Carol’s footsteps drew closer until she emerged into the living room. She made a beeline straight for him. “You’re not even doing it right. Give me the guitar.”
He handed it over to her willingly. His face was starting to hurt from grinning. Carol snorted as she took it back.
“You jackass,” she said, almost affectionately.
“I take it you play?”
“I guess. It’s not as if I’m good or anything.”
“I’m sure you’re better than me.” Robert slid off the couch’s arm onto the cushion just beside it.
“Yeah, well,” Carol began, “between you and me, that doesn’t take a lot.”
“What do you mean? I’m excellent.”
Carol sat down beside him and adjusted the guitar in her lap. She didn’t laugh. “You’re good enough to be in a Midwest emo band, at least.”
“What’s Midwest emo?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Carol said.
“Is that the kind of band you’re in?”
“Not quite. We do folk punk.”
“Oh,” Robert said politely. He tried to keep the tension in his body out of his smile. Fuck. She thinks you’re stupid. If she doesn’t now, she will soon. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Ever heard of Violent Femmes?”
“No.”
“The Taxpayers?”
“No.”
“Pat the Bunny?”
Robert shook his head.
“Andrew Jackson Jihad?”
“I think you’re starting to sense a pattern here.”
Carol glanced up and down at him again. “Yeah. I don’t know what I expected.”
“I’m sorry,” Robert said softly. “I’m still getting back into… um… music, really. I haven’t known what’s popular for a few decades now, let alone the underground stuff.”
Carol was quiet for a while. She didn’t look at him, but Robert got the feeling she was beginning to understand.
“Fair enough,” she told him at last. “I can show you, if you want.”
Robert searched for his phone again. The motion was already becoming reflexive. “Sure. Are you on Spotify?”
He jumped when Carol started laughing. It started as a little snicker. Then it became a wild, unrestrained sound, unlike anything he’d ever heard from her before. If he closed his eyes, Robert could easily imagine a hyena sitting next to him. It took quite some time indeed for her to gather herself. When at last the violent cackling faded into a tired wheeze, she leaned back and sighed.
“I needed that. Holy shit. No, we’re not on Spotify.” She chortled. “We haven’t reached that level of sellout just yet. But we do have…”
Carol trailed off, evidently in thought.
“Actually,” she said, “hold on.”
Without another word, she got up off the couch, left her guitar behind, and went into another room. Presumably her room. More signs and posters sprawled without rhyme or reason across the door. As she opened the door, Robert discreetly leaned forward so he could catch a glimpse of its interior: tangled bedsheets, a pile of clothes on the floor, peeling paint, yet more posters— where was she getting all of these?— an arsenal of empty cups on her nightstand. The door closed behind her. There was a sound of shuffling, clattering, Carol cursing out something she’d left in her way, then silence. She emerged at last with a small plastic case in her hand.
“Here,” she said. Carol had stopped in front of Robert, and she was holding it out now so he could see what it was. A compact disc. The words FISH FINGERS - CARRION AS USUAL had been written on it in red permanent marker. “Our first album. We were just finding our footing with this one. If you can get past this dogshit, you’ll probably like the rest of it.”
Robert blinked, surprised. “I don’t think your bandmates would take kindly to you calling their work dogshit.”
“Oh, no, they’d say the same thing. You have a CD player, don’t you?”
“How’d you know?”
“Because you’re ancient.” Carol dropped the disc in his lap. He picked it up so he could examine it. “In any case, it’s yours now. Take it home and give it a listen. Let me know what you think.”
Robert nodded. “I will. Is Carrion as Usual your band name?”
“No. It’s Fish Fingers.”
“…Why?”
“Our bassist’s name is Fish.”
Now it was Robert’s turn to laugh until tears welled up in his eyes.