Page 4 of Backstage

“Please, Lilly. This is our chance,” cries Martin. “How many times are we gonna get the Jailbirds to do a contest like this again? Go on tour with them and maybe sign for an album with the label?”

It’s a once in a lifetime chance for us and for the thousands of bands all over the United States entering the contest. But me on a stage for a tour, with the most famous rock band in the world, never. The media attention would devour us; journalists would have a field day. It would be an avalanche of coverage from every corner of the world and, along with it, the hatred and envy of every other band who doesn’t want to see us on that stage.

I feel a knot in my stomach and start to breathe without being able to expel all the air out of my lungs. My anxiety attack is about to get out of control. My bandmates look at me like I’m going to die at any moment, especially Taylor, our drummer, who seems to be trembling on the black worn and frayed leather stool. My head starts to spin. I need air, now.

I slip through the outside door, clinging to the railing of the stairs overlooking the East River side of Brooklyn’s neighborhood. I start taking deep breaths, trying to inhale as much air as I can, looking around, taking in the open space and the absence of walls around me. The fear fades a bit, though the smell of garbage in the alleys isn’t exactly helping.

Luke’s arms wrap me in a loving grip, his chest against my back, his chin resting on my head, forcing me to follow his calm and regular breathing. The strength of his embrace makes me feel safe and allows me to focus on the positive. Luke never raises his voice. He is never abrupt or angry enough to make you feel uncomfortable. He is calm and patient. We’ve grown up together since the age of fourteen, and now he’s the mainstay of my life, the one who manages to anchor me when my mind travels at a thousand miles per hour. He’s the hand that pulls me out of the dark thoughts that sometimes envelop me.

“Anxiety attack?” he whispers in my ear.

“I managed to handle it before losing control,” I admit with a little trembling in my voice.

Lucas, or Luke for us in the band, is the person who knows me best; we met at school during the Accident and since that day we’ve become inseparable. That same year we also met Martin, the guitarist, and Taylor, the drummer. From that day on, we spent our days between the rehearsal room and each other’s houses. They were the ones who saved me when I thought there was no hope for me anymore, and, even now, Luke is here holding me so I don’t fall apart.

“Come on, let’s go get some coffee and talk about it.”

I know the others sent him. He’s usually the one who can talk some sense into me. I know this opportunity will never come again, but just the thought of getting on a stage where thousands of people can judge me and mock me makes me anxious. When those kinds of comments are thrown in my face I can’t help but listen to them. I know what dark places my mind drags me to, and I also know how hard it is to get out of them.

We get to the cafe not far from the rehearsal room. It’s small, intimate, and the fact that it’s late summer, with the fresh air caressing your skin in an almost annoying way, feels perfect. The smell of coffee welcomes us, the colorful walls cozy and in stark contrast to the gray hues of the Brooklyn neighborhood.

When you hear people talk about New York, it’s always about the glittering and impressive high-rise buildings, but that’s Manhattan. Where we live, there’s a mix of solid-looking, stocky buildings populated by the rich, mostly artists, with their exotic, alternative lifestyles, and a tangle of cramped, low-rise housing, too cold in winter and too hot in summer. Far from the luxurious part of the city standing tall on the other side of the East River.

We take a seat at one of the corner tables with a faux leather sofa. It’s one of our favorite spots because it’s slightly apart and allows us to talk for hours without anyone bothering us. In front of me, there is a steaming cup of cappuccino with cream, while Luke has just filled the cup of black coffee with sugar. I know he doesn’t like coffee, but at school they always made fun of him by calling him “the British tea man”, so he started drinking coffee saturated with sugar until it became sweet and disgusting. Some white grains are scattered on the dark, sticky wooden coffee table. It looks like it hasn’t been cleaned recently, and he starts playing with it distractedly with his fingers, creating little circular shapes.

“Are you feeling better?” he asks me after I take a few sips.

I shrug my shoulders and nod. “The problem is, if I get a seizure just thinking about entering the contest, how can I stand there and do it for real?” My voice comes out tight, tired.

Luke looks at me, tilting his head, as he usually does when he has no idea whether I’m going to react well or badly to his words. “You’re gonna take it one step at a time like you always do. You may have to take more steps, but you can’t deny yourself this chance. Do you remember what our motto is? ‘Fear does not control our lives’.”

I lower my guilty stare at his sweet, understanding smile. “I know...but this time, the amount of stress I’ll have to deal with is too much for me and your optimism. Maybe it’s better if you find another bass player and enter that contest without me,” I admit.

Luke puts the cup on the table and looks at me with a scary frown. I’ve never seen him so serious. “No way! You’re the one who put this band together, and you’re gonna be with us. If you’re not there, we won’t be there either,” he says.

It’s true that the idea of forming the band was mine. When Luke saved me that day, I was locked in for months and had plenty of time to learn how to play bass. One day, Luke came to my house with yet another black eye. The guys from the neighborhood he was going out with had beaten him up because he refused to deal drugs at school. That’s when the idea of the band came to me. Together we learned how to play, and also got Martin and Taylor involved, who had nothing to lose since they were already the losers of the school. Without even realizing it, we were spending all our free time in the rehearsal room.

“Luke, listen to me, we’re not talking about a field trip, we’re talking about the opportunity of a lifetime. You could have the future you’ve always dreamed of; you can’t give it up on a whim,” I explain just as seriously. “I’m just dead weight. I’d get in the way of you achieving your dream.”

Luke grabs me by the wrist and pulls me beside his toned physique, his blond hair falling over blue eyes that, at this moment, are reading deep into my soul. It is difficult to reason with him; I am an integral part of his world and it seems as though everything could crumble from one moment to the next if I am not part of it. It has always been like that with him. He makes me feel like the most important person on the face of the earth, the one for whom he would give up everything to follow to the end of the world. That’s why I feel so guilty at the idea of abandoning them on the spur of the moment; if the situation were reversed, he would never do such a thing. He would find a way to overcome his problems. But I’m not Luke. I’m not as brave as he is.

“No way, Lil. If it wasn’t for you, sooner or later my friends and I would’ve gotten tired of beating the crap out of each other and started dealing. Besides, you’re a monster bass player, and we wouldn’t stand a chance of getting on their radar if you weren’t on bass.”

I never thought I had saved them from jail, I just didn’t want them to get the shit kicked out of them. We’re not kids from broken homes or criminals. Our parents are decent people. Like most middle-class parents in New York who are forced to work until they break their backs to be able to support their families, ours had no time to control their children. It was easy for someone who’s never seen big money to get lured into petty crime by the prospect of having a few dollars in their pocket to buy stupid but tempting things. In our case, a decent guitar or a thousand-dollar bass.

I get lost in his blue eyes, and I feel guilty. I can read it in the sincerity of his look that he really means to keep his word. These three idiots would really be willing to throw away an opportunity like this if I don’t show up too, and I feel the pressure growing inside my chest about to explode.

“How am I supposed to think about being on a stage and the attention that comes with it, if I can’t even control myself here with you, over coffee? You have no idea how badly my heart is trying to jump out of my chest right now. Jailbirds don’t perform in shitty bars in New York City. They fill stadiums,” I whimper.

Luke looks at me with a smile that warms my chest and holds me closer to him. “Meanwhile, we record the video, because it’s easier to be in front of a camera in an empty room. Then, if we ever manage to beat thousands of bands, we’ll think about the next step,” he says with conviction, and my resistance wavers a little more.

“Do you really think there will be thousands?” I ask, almost confidently. Hope is mixed with guilt.

Luke laughs and holds me a little tighter. “I think they’ll have to watch so many videos of that song that they’ll hate it before they select a band,” he laughs.

I look at him while moving a little away. “What song did they pick? I was so caught up in my paranoia that this information escaped me,” I ask, intrigued, and less worried.

“’Jude,’” says Luke with a sly smile.

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