Songbirds
The
Ballad of Bridget and Brian 
Kitty Schooley
Chapter
4
Nightingales
Table of Contents
Chapter 11
Getting Cocked and Cock Fights
Brian blinked his eyes awake. I tried to suppress a smile, but it was too late. Pleasant memories were washing over me like warm watercolor washes. He smiled back. “What cha thinking about?”
“I was thinking about Roger,” I said.
“Ugh!” he rolled over and stared at the ceiling. “I hate the Roger Brooks of the world.” He had intentionally mixed my ex-husband’s last name because we both knew they were the same type.
I added silently that I hated the Caren Carrolls, alcohol and substance abuse. “Maybe you should be thankful to Roger. How long would it have taken for you to get up the nerve to kiss me, if not for him?”
“I was working on it,” he said defensively.
I snuggled close and traced the lines on his nose and eyebrows like I had thought of before. “Actually, I was thinking about the first time I got to wake up next to you.” It was our first out-of-town gig, too many hours to drive after playing until one in the morning. We hadn’t been out of high school long.
“Your dad was pissed,” he laughed. “I always thought he liked me until then.”
“He did like you. He just didn’t believe in pre-marital sex. Especially not for his daughter.”
“At least, Meg was on our side by that time.”
Strangely my mother argued for me, too. “Hal, they’re going to have to do some out of town engagement if their band’s going to be successful.”
Brian and I sat nervously holding hands on the living room sofa. We both had sweaty, clammy hands. His added to the mushy feeling I had already. I’m sure it was returned but we didn’t let go. We did not know what to do if my father did not agree. We didn’t have the money yet to live away from our parents even though we were out of high school. In addition, we needed every gig we could get.
My father paced tensely back and forth. Meg may have been on our side, but she had vanished from the room at that moment. Had roles been reversed, I would have done the same.
My father said, “I don’t care if their band is successful or not.” With that the tears started to stream down my face. Brian moved to put his arm around me and squeezed my shoulders. For three years, at that point, we had pursued the dream of having a hit rock’n’roll band. I had enrolled in community college to appease my father. It was hell trying to keep up a full class schedule and do homework with all the late nights we were having. “I suppose it’s all academic anyway,” my father said gruffly. “Isn’t it!”
With that I began to cry harder. Brian pulled my head to his shoulder and stroked my head. I thought he was very brave to comfort me with my father glaring at us. “Do you really think you’re going to be able to take care of her with all these late nights and roaming around the country?”
“I’m going to try, sir,” Brian answered.
“What if you two end up having a baby?”
“We take precautions,” Brian said. I swallowed hard. I could feel heat coming from my father’s direction.
“OK. Just don’t expect me to help out if you do get in trouble.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Thanks, dad,” I said meekly. My mother was at my dad’s elbow soothing him and guiding him away from us. I was thankful to her for realizing I needed to regain my composure away from his presence.
A few minutes later, Meg showed up. “He said ‘yes’!” she said excitedly.
“Yeah, thanks for being there for us,” I said as snidely as I could through sobs that still clogged my throat.
“Come on, Bree, she’s trying,” Brian defended her. “That was a pretty tough audience, you have to admit.”
“I know,” I said snuggling closer to him. “Sorry, Meg.”
With that she bounced on the sofa next to me and threw her arms around both of us. “Wish I could go!”
“ Oh, that would go over really good with Dad. Both his daughters away with long-haired weirdoes.”
“ Yeah, guess that would be too much to expect,” she giggled.
“ I wish you weren’t away at college so much now,” I said and turned more toward her.
“ I thought you always wanted a room to yourself.”
“ I’d rather fight with you or Luke than Dad.”
“ Yeah, at least you got a chance with us.”
The argument with the band went a lot differently. Brian wasn’t meek and apologetic with them. The subject of the argument was different, too. The rest of the guys didn’t want to get two motel rooms, since it decreased our net take. Even though I did not want to wake up next to him in a room with three other guys, I was quiet. “Look, we’re just gonna get some cheesy hotel. What’s another ten, fifteen dollars? That’s only two, three dollars less each,” Brian argued.
“You’re an asshole, that’s what it is,” Joey said. He was never one for a logical argument.
“Why do you get to decide everything?” Greg asked.
“You wanna take over managing everything? You wanna find the gigs?” Brian said. He had assumed leadership of the band and it had seemed as natural as his guitar playing.
“Brian is right,” Mark said. “Bridget doesn’t want to wake up in a roomful of guys.” Four sets of eyes converged on Mark. Mine because he had so quietly and easily stated what I was feeling. Did it show? Brian wanted privacy with me, so his eyes were there for similar reasons to mine. The other two sets were there because to that point, Mark had rarely spoken up. “Well, they’ll only have two double beds, and I don’t wanna sleep on the floor.”
So it went. With Mark’s support, we got two rooms. We were playing at some bar that had been converted from a large barn or hanger in a small college town. Where the college ended, the cornfields began. It was a town of some infamy, though. After a rock group got busted for drug procession, they wrote a song about it: Tarkeo, Missouri. The audience was really in tune to us. We played the best we had in the nearly three years we had been together. I had seen Brian jump and bop on stage like never before. He would jump, fall on his knees and slid across the stage. When he sang, he screamed passion into the microphone. I know I played well. There was a bubbly feeling inside as my fingers found exactly the right note each time. They danced; they twirled. When I sang harmonies or the sweet ballad that were assigned to me, I felt completely detached from the nervousness that usually plagued me. Joey, who had been invited to join our band based more on how he looked than how he played, oozed charmed. His vocals were less ragged than Brian’s and he would provide the voice when a song called for something smoother. Mark’s bass was like a jellyfish in the ocean. It was liquid and pulsing and moved along gracefully in the waves. His presence on stage was laid back, his head bent over his guitar, and his thoughts absorbed. Greg provided the back beat essential to rock.
Someone came over to congratulate us during a break. “Man, you guys are great! This is the best band we’ve had here. Hope they have you back.” He extended a hand to shake with Brian.
“Thanks,” Brian said. I swallowed hard at the dichotomy I just saw. He had been a mad man on stage and was now shy and self-effacing.
We were high on that performance. When the time to break down came, we all had to do our part in the early days before roadies. Brian’s eyes and mine met frequently over equipment. We were both anticipating our night alone together. His eyes sparked the thunder of desire. Those were one of the few times I could read his eyes, when lightning flashed through them in longing for me.
We packed up the van that was actually Greg’s VW bus. It had become the band’s van since it was the only vehicle capable of holding the equipment and the people traveling to gigs. Despite the fact that the van was still registered in Greg’s dad’s name, the band had assumed responsibility for upkeep and gas to and from gigs. The reasoning was without a van, there would be no gigs, and so Brian subtracted the van upkeep tax from each of our takes. Joey was the only one who ever complained.
We were all tired. We decided that since the van had curtains on the sides and the in back and we had covered all the equipment with moving blankets, that we would just lock the van and leave it for the night. Anyone breaking in would not be going specifically for musical instruments, just for potluck so that made it less likely. That was the way our logic was working at two in the morning.
Besides, Brian and I had something else on our minds. We barely got our overnight bags pushed through the door, the door closed and locked when we were peeling our own and each other’s clothes off. We were trying to kiss and keep connected while we moved toward the bed. Fortunately, in that small room it wasn’t too far. Our clothes were discarded in a trail from the door to the bed. When we were naked, he pushed me down on the bed. We didn’t bother pulling the covers back. He pushed his hand between my thighs. As his fingers teased open the folds, I felt moisture gush from within. “I can’t wait anymore, Bree,” he breathed into my ear and then licked the crease behind.
I didn’t know if I was ready or not, but I was grappling to get him on top of me and in me. I was thankful that after high school I had gone to the clinic and got birth control and we no longer had to worry about rubbers. He pushed inside me and moaned. Then he set the beat. He did with the band and in lovemaking with me. He was a hard-driving rock beat. The light that had been switched on when we entered the room was still on. I could see all the nuances of his face: his mouth slack jawed and his eyes squeezed tight. He opened them, and a flash of lightning hit mine from his. “Bree! Bree-gee, I can’t wait!”
I was clawing his back and butt. “Oh, yeah!” I encouraged him. I wanted him deeper inside and pushed up to meet his thrust. He groaned that swallowed sound he had made our first night of making-out. That time it was let loose and amplified. He went heavy on top of me.
“I’m sorry, Bree-gee. I didn’t wait for you.”
I tangled my fingers in his hair. I was so happy at the moment it didn’t matter to me. “I love you.”
“I’ll make it up to you.” He pulled out and I felt sad at the disconnection. He moved his mouth down over my body in the way he knew now would please me. He had studied me as well as his guitar. He was continually asking, “Can I try this?” “Did you like that?” Eventually his head was between my thighs; his tongue passed over my intimate folds searching for the joy button. His fingers pushed inside to increase the sensation. It was a practice melody of mouth music he knew well. I sang out my excitement and delight until there were no sounds left in me. Brian turned out the light. We crawled under the covers and fell asleep in each other’s arms.
When dawn peaked through the cracks between the drapes like a slice of mother-of-pearl, I crept out of bed to use the bathroom. I tried not to wake Brian, but he was awake when I slid back in next to him. “Where’d you go?”
“Just to the bathroom,” I said and started to get comfortable next to his warm skin.
“Hmm, me too!” he said and threw back the covers. I watched him as moved across the room. He became aware and exaggerated his strut. I giggled. When he got back under the covers with me, his hands were cold. I pushed them away playfully. He tickled me and tickled him back. Then play turned to lovemaking. His hands were as practiced going over my body as they were sliding up and down the neck of a guitar. He rolled on top and our duet began again. Afterward, we fell back asleep, temporarily satisfied.
When we awoke again, kisses and cuddles turned into a reprise of lovemaking. As if he knew what we were doing, Joey pounded on the door. “Com’on, we gotta get going! We gotta be checked out before eleven.”
“Go away!” Brian shouted and I tittered underneath him.
“You two are paying for the extra day if you’re not outta here.”
“What time is it?” Brian said to me.
I reached for my watch on the nightstand. “Ten.”
“When’s check-out?”
“Eleven.”
“Good!” He started thrusting away again and I responded by arching to meet him. He rained kisses over me. I searched desperately for the best handholds on his body.
Joey came back banging and shouting. This time before Brian could scream at him, we heard another voice. “Is there a problem, son?” We recognized the motel manager’s voice.
“No, sir. Just want to make sure my friends don’t miss check-out.”
“It’s almost an hour till then,” the manager said.
Brian and I were desperately trying to stifle laughing aloud. Finally the giddiness passed and we got back to the business of love. Both satisfied, he asked, “Wanna take a quick shower?” I had not thought to bring a hair dryer, but I still wanted to be naked with him to be able to appreciate his body and mine next to him. Soaping each other up led to Brian getting another erection, and when he was rinsed off, I knelt down to suck him. Though he sighed with pleasure, he said, “We better not,” and helped me to stand. He kissed me and bent down and took each of my nipples in his mouth. I felt like I would die until we could make love again.
I shivered when I walked out side with wet hair in the cool spring morning. Brian put our bags in the back of the van, and then helped me into the back seat. Just then, Joey punched him in the back. “Jesus, Timoney, how many times did you have to fuck her!”
Brian spun around. I was trying to push my way back out of the van. Mark stepped in between them. In retrospect, it seemed funny. Mark was smaller than either of them. “Com’on. They got out in time.”
“We could’ve left an hour ago!” Joey shouted.
“What’s the big hurry?” Mark asked. There was none. That was a time when the rest of the band was jealous that Brian had an inside girlfriend, the band chick. The immediate flashing anger dissipated, but the tension remained. I had the additional sinking feeling that our lovemaking had not been as private and insulated as first thought.
I wanted to lean up against Brian and sleep. I was tired from being up late and not getting enough sleep. Tension hummed in the air like a tuning fork. Greg said, “I wanna get some breakfast.”
“No, place’ll have breakfast now, thanks to the lovebirds,” Joey said.
“We’ll get lunch,” Mark said.
“We can go to a store and get donuts, or somethin’,” Brian said. So we bounced around in the back while Joey sat up front and Greg drove. Greg cursed about not getting breakfast and not being able to find anywhere to stop in this god-forsaken area. Joey, not being able to find anything else negative to say, sat silently and sulked. Finally, Greg pulled into a parking lot and the guys filled up. I ate a little something, too. The VW bus was filled with so much tension, it threatened to be too much weight to be transported home. Mark said, “So, you two had fun?”
Everyone laughed. Joey said, “That’s the freaking understatement of the year!” The tension shattered like a glass exposed to a high frequency vibration.
Brian pulled me closer, petted my brow, and said, “Yeah, we had fun.” I snuggled up against him and fell asleep for the rest of the ride home.
The equipment got unloaded and each of us got dropped at our respective homes. My father still blazed with anger, but my mother had installed a system of containment ditches and backfires. I was still tired, so I napped, then got up and talked to my mom and Meg about how the gig went. After dinner, Brian showed up at the backdoor. My father passed by the entryway and he still felt like being too close to a wildfire, but he didn’t speak. My mother said, “Brian, Bridget says your engagement was quite successful!”
“Yes, ma’am. We were very well received.”
“What an understatement!” Meg exclaimed. “Birdie said she just about had to chase the girls away from you!”
“Well,” Brian said shyly. “Well, Joey, he’s really the one they’re after.”
“Well, I suppose you two have a lot to talk about. Why don’t you two go on downstairs? Meg and I are going to finish the dishes,” my mom said to usher us away from my dad.
My father’s wildfire trail turned sharply toward the living room, and we skulked off downstairs to the rec room. I turned on the TV just for the noise. I sat down next to Brian on the sofa. He put his arm around me and nuzzled my ear. He whispered, “Oh, Bree, I wanna be next to your naked skin like that every night. I wanna be inside you every night.”
I put my hand on his knee and squeezed. “I do, too. But how?”
“I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.” He had figured out how to get a keyboard for me and how to start a band. I had faith he would figure out this, too.
* * *
My head came back to the nineties, to Brian and me being over forty years old. We were much more likely to just cuddle this morning. I appreciated his skin next to mine, nonetheless. He used his free hand to stroke my hair. “I remember when this came down to your waist.”
“Wasn’t practical when I got to be a mom.”
“You cut it before that.”
I had. When Brian and I were engaged in our war that ended the relationship and the band, I had cut my hair to spite him. When I became a businesswoman, I found it was much easier to care for when it was not that long. It was also much easier as a mom. I couldn’t think about that now. I was exploring his chest with my fingertips. He grabbed my hand and held it. “So what do you do during the day?”
“I call Meg a lot. Most places I buy something for Sonya, find a mall or something. Sometimes I go to the library.”
“The library?”
“Yeah, that big building with books.”
“I know what it is. I’m just surprised. It doesn’t sound like the life of a big rock star.”
“You’re the big rock star. What’d you do?”
“Actually, I’ve been watching a lot of TV. Maybe I should buy Eddie something. Would you help me?” He put my fingers up to his mouth and kissed them. A delicious feeling came over me and I forgot to breathe. “Well, would you?”
“What?” The things he was saying were inconsistent with what he was doing.
“Find something for Eddie?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure.”
“You’re thinking something else, though. Aren’t you?” He kissed me. He tongue lingered in my mouth, taking me through the steps we had learned together so well. He broke the contact and I sighed. He worked kisses down the side of my neck and then to the soft place below the throat.
“You’d better be serious,” I said as he migrated down toward my breast.
“I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
* * *
We arranged for a taxi to take us to the closest mall. I had learned that that was less conspicuous than limos that were reserved for travel to and from concerts and airports. I pulled Brian’s hair back in a ponytail, and he put on a hat and wore dark sunglasses. He was about as disguised as we could get him, and he would have to lose the sunglasses inside. We arrived at the mall and we held hands. Held hands! I could not remember the last time I held hands with anyone, much less Brian. “So what’d think we should get him?”
“I don’t know. He’s a boy. I’m use to buying for a girl.”
“Hmpf. Some feminist you are! I would think you’d say it shouldn’t make a difference.”
“It shouldn’t, but it does. We still can’t break away from our own socialization, how can we hope to socialize our children different?”
“So what’s it gonna be, then?”
“Well, there’s always the T-shirt saying where you’ve been.” We headed for a T-shirt shop and browsed.
Someone recognized Brian, bought a T-shirt and had him sign it. Brian said, “Don’t you want the signature of In Faith’s keyboardist?”
The man eyed me critically. “Bridget? Wow, I just thought you were…”
I took the pen and finished his thought. Some babe Brian picked up. When he left, I said, “See, I told you they don’t recognize me.”
“You leave your stage presence behind. Out here you’re just another pretty face.”
“Hmm, at least you said it was a pretty face.”
Brian encircled my shoulders with his arm. He kissed me. “Now about that T-shirt.”
* * *
The next morning we had a telephone interview with the radio station in the next area we were performing. Leroy Frye, our record promoter on the tour, arranged for it in his room. If anyone had noticed Brian and me coming out of my room together, no one said. We were then on the band bus for four hours. He put his hand on my knee. Old familiar things that did not seem out of place in this setting. Our bags were placed in separate rooms, but he stayed with me. There were lots of activities like autograph sessions, so that we were together but not alone. Brian smiled that easygoing grin. I was falling under his mesmerization again. A little rodent woke up in the corner of my mind. It was scratching to get out of a hole it had grown too big for. It reminded me that I had not asked for everything when I agreed to be with Brian. Be quiet! Go away! I shouted at it. I will, he said if you let me out and deal with me. No! Things are going well. Why should I deal with you! Hmpf! said the rat you’ll see!
“Meg,” I whispered into the phone one morning as Brian still slept.
“Speak up, Birdie,” she said exasperated.
“I can’t. Brian’s still asleep. I don’t want to wake him.”
“Oh, I see,” she sighed.
“What do you see?”
“You’re a couple again. But you’re not sure you’re doing the right thing. Some book you read says your relationship isn’t matching up to their paint-by-number formula.”
“I love him. I know he loves me. It’s just that…” I had my finger on the problem. My finger just kept slipping off.
“I suggest you just enjoy yourself. Life is too short for all this drama.”
“It’s a big risk,” I said.
“Yeah, and no risk at all and you’re sitting at home on your hands with nobody.”
“Thanks, Meg,” I said. “Love to the kids.”
Brian and I had sat together everywhere. There had been casual touches. Had no one else noticed how they burned my skin? Just before we were to go onto stage, he pulled me in his arms. He kissed me passionately. “Christ, Timoney, not again!” Joey said.
Brian came up smiling triumphantly from the kiss. My knees buckled and a wave of stage fright washed through me. How was I going to perform now when all my blood had been pulled to my pelvis and all my thoughts were of him?
We walked out on stage linked arm in arm. Brian waved and grinned at the crowd. He turned his eyes toward me. Lightning in the thunder gray meant that my feelings were returned. The other two were picking up their instruments and Greg was getting comfortable behind his drums. Brian loosed his hold on me and I drifted over to my keyboard. Did all those thousands of eyes see how I felt? Or did they just take it for California affection. Brian slung his guitar over his shoulder and lifted his hand high in the air as our first cue. The first rifts of one of our most popular songs lifted out of the speakers and a roar went through the crowd. Brian was musical leader of the band by tacit agreement and I had to watch him for cues. Watching him as his hips bumped behind the guitar was giving me waves of distracting thoughts as I thought how I would like to have them moving that way close to mine. I looked over at Greg. Sweat was already beading up on his face. The lank locks close to his face were already beginning to look pasted there. Then I looked over at Joey. He kept his hair short and styled now. His perfectly white and straight teeth beamed from between lips curled into a perfect smile. He had a self-imposed hard life and still he managed to look fine. He was now adept at providing power chords and a rhythmic base. He would never be known as a great guitarist but he looked good doing it. My eyes fixed on Mark. His features were delicate, almost feminine. His woolly hair was close cropped now with plenty of salt and pepper in the mass of black. He bent his head over his bass in a meditative look. The bass pulsed through the music like that clear jellyfish I imagined long ago. It was nearly invisible, yet pulsed along through the water of the music with ease. When it got close, you would notice it actually had substance and could sting. Mark had those long smooth fingers of a sensitive man. Yeah, well, he’s a fag I could hear Joey saying in my mind. What did you expect? As if he felt me looking at him, Mark looked up and smiled. He looked like a smaller, more feminine, and more woolly-haired version of Brian. I smiled back. Just then Brian was in my face mouthing, “What the fuck are you doing?” I realized I had missed a musical cue and nodded. Brian was adept enough to provide a musical backpedal to the cue and the audience never realized anything. There was a storm brewing in his eyes, but it would not precipitate while we were on stage. His stage persona took over, and he smiled and bobbed his head to the music. His legs bent like water spiders as he pumped back over to the mike. I was sufficiently chagrined not to miss any more cues that night.
© 2005 Kitty Schooley
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