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The air is stale from artificial fog left from the day before and smells like beer and cold pot smoke. The floor is sticky from spilled drinks that never properly dried. On the walls, there are layers of old posters and new flyers announcing gigs; the stage is almost too small for the speakers stacked on its sides, carefully labeled wires and a drum kit already put up. Backstage is little more than a couple rooms packed with techs and roadies and guitar cases. It’s not the kind of venue anyone who’s ever as much as scraped by the top 100 would even think of playing in—except for the times when it is.
Kent Parson is leaning against an open doorway, looking out at the stage and watching the girl working the lights adjust settings on her control desk. He’s scheduled for soundcheck in half an hour, but he’s always early. It’s a remnant from his days playing only these kinds of venues, the sketchy basement clubs with malfunctioning lights and dirt-cheap vodka sodas. The ones where you have to show up on time, or they’ll just shrug and let the next band play instead. The kinds of venues even a scrappy college-dropout kid from Buffalo with too many feelings he didn’t know what to do with except channel into guitar riffs and angry breakup songs got to play in.
Founder’s is the smallest stop on this tour by more than a mile, but Kent plays it for the last night of every tour, and this one is no different. It’s nothing like the Fillmore or, god forbid, Webster Hall, but their sound guy, Alexei, is severely underpaid for the acoustics he conjures up every weekend between the bar, stage, and the three shitty flaking-leather sofas crammed into the left corner by the entryway to the bathroom, tucked halfway under the stairs. Kent loves it. It’s like he’s nineteen again every single time he steps out onto the crammed stage, in all the good and all the worst ways.
“Parson!”, someone yells behind him. Holly, Kent’s manager, is looking stressed in the way she always does, frantically waving a clipboard around. Kent’s not sure what’s there to stress over in this place of all, but he trudges over to go on whatever supply run she needs him to do now. He’s done all this yesterday and the day before, and even right here in this exact place a year before. There’s very little that could ruin his chill and dim the fizzing excitement of playing in here again.
*
Jack Zimmermann hates his college friends. There’s no reason why he would need to go to a club on his off night. Two hours ago, Shitty had showed up at his hotel room, straight off finishing grading abysmal L1 papers, mischievous look on his face, and said: “Alright, we’re going out.”
Jack had sputtered “who’s we?”, barely managed to grab his ball cap and wallet, and then found himself in the back of an Uber on the way to whatever basement venue Shitty had set his mind to this time. Of course, on the way, Lardo had joined them, spiritually connected to wherever Shitty was, like the world’s most menacing GPS. He’d hugged her, of course. If she noticed the way he’d lingered on the hug for a second too long, she hadn’t said anything, just started bickering with Shitty about his outfit choices over his shoulder. It's been a long year for all of them. And, of course, once the three of them had sat down inside the already-dingy bar somewhere at the edge of Fishtown, Ransom and Holster had joined them. Holster had yelled “If it isn’t Jack fucking Zimmermann!” across the entire room loud enough to make Jack reflexively duck his head down. Unnecessary; no one in this badly-lit maybe-sports bar — there were TVs turned to a tennis tournament even Jack didn’t recognize — looked like they cared about music made by anyone under 60.
Eventually, once Holster and Ransom determined all of them were sufficiently drunk, they'd left for what must be the shittiest club in the entire city of Philadelphia. It's a hole in the wall place, entryway in a back alley, a small line waiting outside, bouncer taller than Holster and broader than Ransom. He takes their 10 dollars each without more than glancing at their IDs and waves them through, all done in less than a minute. Jack doesn't think he's ever been here, never heard of it, but Lardo keeps talking while they go down a few steps into a moderately crowded and severely under-lit and under-ventilated room: "…they have this amazing sound system and lots of great bands got started here over the years. I don't know how they've managed to avoid going bankrupt with the rent prices in this area, honestly. But anyway, they refuse to announce who's playing on weekends, it's all word of mouth. Worth it, though!"
At this point, Shitty chimes in with something that's undoubtedly a critique of gentrification no one but Lardo will understand, while Ransom starts to drag Jack to the bar. It's busy, the room's filling up, and they wait for a while until there's finally space to weave through to the counter. There are a couple girls on the stage, playing a rock cover of a Springsteen song, but they're clearly pre-show — it's too early, and only a few people have stopped talking to listen. Jack absently nods along to the beat. One of them is doing some serious moves on her bright-pink electric guitar. Lardo wasn't lying about the sound system in this place. Obviously — Lardo has always had an ear for these things.
Finally in earshot of a bartender, a short woman with a thick braid and red eye make-up, Jack halfway leans over the counter to not have to yell and still ends up having to repeat himself louder. He pays for the beers and his club soda while Ransom flirts with the people crammed in next to them, then carefully balances it all back to Shitty and Lardo.
"Where's Holster?", Ransom asks, looking around the room.
Lardo shrugs. "Think he saw someone he knows, said he'd be right back."
Ransom nods and points vaguely to the side: "I'll go find the bathroom before everyone else, don't move", then vanishes into the crowd.
That's how Jack finds himself standing awkwardly there with his soda while Shitty and Lardo talk about the class Shitty is TAing this semester and Lardo's newest idea for an art installation. Jack doesn't know what to talk about that's not related to the exhaustion and restlessness from touring, and just keeps his mouth shut except to prompt Shitty to keep talking. Around them, the crowd keeps chatting, a few people moving to a surprisingly clean rendition of a Libertines song. The crowd skews surprisingly young for this kind of place, lots of people who look like they might still be in college or in their first job, less of the older crowd that usually keeps basement venues like this one open long enough without having to end up on Instagram.
"Hey", Jack calls out to a guy standing close to them - twenty going on thirty, faded Third Eye Blind tee and some truly awful facial hair decisions. "Any idea who's playing today?" The guy half-shrugs and laughs, broad, already tipsy.
"Not really! Usually you hear about at least one of the acts, but this time no one seems to know", he thinks for a second, then continues, excited, "maybe they got an A-lister again but can't really help you, sorry!"
Jack does the bro thing, bumps his fist, and then turns back to Lardo and Shitty.
"Why did this guy tell me A-list people play here?", he asks Lardo. Leave it to her to find the only club in town so shitty you don't even want to think about the bathroom but where current big names play anyway. The thought makes him feel nauseous.
Lardo giggles. Shitty's holding her almost empty beer cup, grinning.
"It's really sick, just wait. Probably no one you'd know, anyway, they get really niche, it'll be great!"
Jack wants to believe her any second. Lardo's taste in music has always been better than anyone else he knows. Well. Most people he knows. But he prefers to avoid thinking about that particular landmine of bad feelings.
"Bro", Ransom half-yells into Jack's ear from behind all of a sudden while the band on stage kicks up the amps another notch. He drapes one large arm over Jack's shoulder, while Holster returns holding new cups. Maybe this evening will be worth the headache tomorrow morning and all day, Jack thinks, and laughs at one of Shitty's horrible jokes. He wants it to be.
*
Kent loves a crowd. It’s no secret, but he’s always played better shows in front of a crowd excited to hear great music. It doesn’t matter how many people he plays in front of as long as he can feel the emotions and excitement slosh up from the audience, on top of the front row and over the stage like a wave of heavy adrenaline, thick and intoxicating in his veins. His riffs get cleaner and the melodies and lyrics come out crisper if he feels like everyone in the room wants to feel the same he did when he wrote this specific song.
He’s too old now to still do drugs, but it’s a little bit similar to those days.
The crowd at Founder’s is excited. Very few people come to see specific bands, trusting in the owner’s talent for finding those people who can rock a dingy basement packed with half-drunk thirty-year-olds. Kent loves it here, for this exact feeling. From his perspective up on the stage, people all the way against the far-back wall are moving, cheering, singing along when they recognize a song. The room is too dark against the flickering stage lights reflecting right up onto the stage to see more than outlines, but the mood feels frizzy against Kent’s arms where his tee stops and the air blows against his bare skin. It’s a good night.
Swoops, Kent’s bassist and back-up vocals, starts up the baseline to the next song on the set list taped against the scuffed-up floor, halfway hidden under an amp. All of them know what to play and when to start which song next, and when to wait for Kent to tell a stupid story about his writing. It’s shaping up to be the night Kent has been itching for all year, furtively and wildly.
*
Jack feels himself almost drop his cup when the singer of the next band this evening starts to play a song Jack’s tried and failed to be entirely unfamiliar with. He’d recognize this voice, this song pretty much everywhere, even when all he can see is a shadowy figure, all the way on the other side of the room, stage too dimly lit to have been able to be sure before, fifty tightly packed people in every direction between Kent, the stage, Jack, the exit. Jack acutely feels all the fizzy soda he’s had this evening already in his stomach. No matter how he turns and twists it, between the guitar wires, amps and the drum kit, there is Kent Parson. And he’s opening his band’s set with a deep-cut song from their first record, written back when all of them were still a bunch of college kids practicing in their dorm's basement, two doorways away from the laundry room. The song's heavy and angry, an opener made for this kind of club, where people immediately feel it if a band got their shit together about rock music or not. Jack hates it. He hates that the guitars sound solid, that the drum kicks are dictating his heartbeat. He hates that Jack’s management makes him play the most boring song he’s ever written as an opener, because it got lots of radio play and works with the crowd. All of it is horrible and awesome, and he wishes he was anywhere else on the planet.
“-Jack? Jack!” Shitty has been saying his name progressively louder, right next to him. Jack jerks alert, turns around once he finally hears him over the speakers cranked up high, somehow without losing any dynamics in the sound. Lardo was so right once again, their sound guy really is magic. And it is great — of course it is. Kent's got it, whatever it is you need to be great in the rock music scene.
When Jack looks more closely, Shitty’s face is worried, his brows knitted together.
“I promise, I didn’t know he’d play tonight, we can totally leave if you want or anything!”
It’s useless, would be cruel making everyone leave because of Jack's bad feelings about fucking college. Holster and Ransom are entirely caught up in the guitar solo, Lardo is listening to what Shitty said and nodding supportively but looking entirely crestfallen of the thought of leaving now. Jack is determined to act like the grown-up he is.
“It’s fine, enjoy the evening!”, he yells over to Shitty and Lardo, and drowns the rest of his drink. It’s fizzy soda, but he still feels slightly better afterwards.
Just when he’s about convinced himself he totally can be nonchalant about this evening, the band ends their song with people everywhere cheering. Jack grimaces. Of course, everyone here would love The Aces. Of course.
*
The air is heavy from artificial fog and a hundred people each standing inches from the next one, Kent’s voice slicing clean through it, making way for the electric guitar, their reverb lingering between the hazy smoke over people’s heads. It’s the kind of gig Kent loves. It’s why he returns here of all places over and over again. The crowd’s into it, even the Greta Van Fleet cover their drummer talked them all into yesterday that Kent was a tiny bit worried about catching on with the sort of people who frequent Founders. The lights switch for the next song as Kent takes a gulp from his nearly empty water bottle. He adjusts his capo, says something about the next song he doesn’t remember five seconds out from saying it out loud, and focuses on keeping count with the kick drum beats to not miss his cue.
*
Jack’s coping. He’s staring at the stage, eyes a little unfocused, periodically swallowing acid spit. His heart hurts. It’s a great concert. The sound is amazing, the riffs catchy, everything’s right on beat, lyrics even more clever and devastating than in those early songs Jack desperately tried and maybe failed to forget. Kent’s a great musician, always has been, but now he looks comfortable, too.
Eventually, just before the Aces launch into another song, Kent grabs the mic and says, a little out of breath: “Alright, this last one is about some guy I was in love with once, but I never told him. It’s a new one, but you guys might like it.”
The beat starts, echoing all the way down into Jack’s stomach, wedging itself into a standstill there, right next to Kent’s words. His breath gets stuck too, caught in his windpipe, air suddenly cut off. Fair enough, he thinks, and then turns around, squeezing past everyone in the way between himself and the exit, waving off Lardo’s hand on his elbow and Ransom’s worried question he doesn’t hear. He’s not fast enough, mic is set loudly enough for Jack to still hear Kent recount a weekend trip on the other side of Lake Erie like he’s standing next to him, a day spent afraid to touch each other’s hands, finally a desperate make-out session in a highway rest stop parking lot ten miles before Buffalo’s skyline would’ve been visible again. Jack has written about those couple of days as well. But, suddenly, irrationally, he feels viciously protective of them, like they’re his and Kent’s only, not to share with a hundred people in a basement club, not with eight thousand at the concert hall he’s scheduled to play at tomorrow.
Finally, up the stairs, past the bouncer, out into the alley, Jack catches his breath again. He’s leaning against the cool concrete of the building, next to a dumpster and a metal door, probably the backstage entryway. Fair enough , Jack thinks again and scuffs his shoe against the cracking asphalt. He can wait. It’s all he’s ever done. What he made Kent do for way too long until he finally acted anyway, and then it all blew up in their faces. And now he’s here in a sketchy back alley in Philadelphia, worried about his sleep and what to say to people at the management-mandated meet and greet hour, dragged to the coolest club in the city by his college friends with real jobs, while Kent plays a club no one made him play, in a shitty tee-shirt and the same unruly blonde hair he had in college — the college he dropped out of to go be a musician. Jack got his degree like his mom wanted him to, then signed a record deal with the label his dad wanted him to, and now he’s having a panic attack about a goddamn song.
Great fucking life.
Ten minutes pass, then fifteen, then it occurs to him to text Shitty or Holster, to let them know not to worry about him, that he’s going to head back to his hotel, that they should enjoy the rest of their night out. Not their fault he’s having a bad week. But then, instead of moving, ordering an Uber, he just keeps standing there. The air is warm, an early summer evening. The wall across the tiny alley has graffiti sprayed onto it. Mostly tags and quick designs, messy, done in such a hurry the color drips down the lines. A few are more intricate, maybe done with permission or late enough at night the artist didn’t worry about anyone noticing. A bird of some sort, a guitar, a black-and-white playing card. An ace, Jack thinks, and closes his eyes. Just for a moment, leaning back against the concrete wall.
When he opens them again, it’s because the metal door bangs open, laughter spilling out. A few people follow the sounds, clearly confused to see someone stand next to the door.
A woman, with curly brown hair and in a black crop top, raises her eyebrows. Jack feels dizzy, didn’t notice he’d almost fallen asleep standing upright.
“-sorry?”, he says.
“I thought this place was too cool for groupies”, the woman says, amused. Someone steps out of the group. Jack’s heart skips a beat, then sinks all the way down below his stomach.
“Didn’t think you’d be here”, Kent Parson says, smiling. He sounds — Jack can’t put his finger on it. Irritated? Not angry, not delighted. Scared? Maybe that’s himself, though.
“Hey Kenny”, he says, amazed at how steady his voice comes out. Time to be an adult, even if everything inside him wants to scream or cry or hug Kent or punch him in the face for talking about whatever was between the two of them years ago, back in college.
*
Jack looks tired, Kent thinks. He’s still feeling the high from playing, like a light buzz, only without the alcohol. The air outside is cool against his heated skin, tee soaked, his hair feeling damp against the back of his neck. There’s nothing he’d expected less from this night than stumbling into Jack Zimmermann.
His face is as annoying and annoyingly handsome as ever. “Hey Zimms”, Kent says and motions for his band members to move on. Whatever this is, this is about him. And it probably won’t be pretty. They’ve known him since college — they know how he used to get. Not anymore, though, he thinks, firmly. Jack and him, they’re above the kind of screaming match their last meeting ended with.
Carly and Scraps bump against his shoulder as they leave, probably to head back to the car and then back to the hotel. Or maybe out to some bar, Kent isn’t sure, they haven’t made plans for the day. Usually, shows in Founders end with them all floating on a high, spontaneous, hungry for more music, keeping them awake for the rest of the night. The idea of even the mere appearance of Jack fucking Zimmermann being enough to derail Kent’s entire night makes him weirdly furious. He feels cold.
“What are you doing here?”, he asks when Jack doesn’t look like he’ll open his mouth any time soon. A muscle on his jaw twitches. Jack’s face is lit up by the streetlamp behind Kent.
Kent crosses his arms. His shirt clings tightly to his biceps, sweaty and chilly, uncomfortable.
“I didn’t know you guys would be playing tonight”, Jack finally answers. There are blotchy white spots on his cheeks, right across his cheekbones. “Lardo dragged me here, this club wasn’t my idea.”
Lardo is the short one who was the only one of them who actually majored in arts, Kent vaguely recalls. Good music taste. Loud voice. He’d never bothered to keep contact, after he’d left college and the prospect of a career in finance he never wanted for Philadelphia and the industry.
“I believe that”, he says. It sounds snide, meaner than he meant it to.
“Well, not all of us can play fuck off tour to play a shitty basement gig.”
Kent laughs. The alley is silent around them and the sound echoes around, off the dumpster overflowing with folded up cardboard boxes and the graffiti-covered building wall on the other side. Once upon a time, Scraps put up their band logo up there, too, Kent distantly recalls.
Jack scoffs. “I get it, you’re too good for me.”
He looks upset, eyes flitting from side to side, faint splotches getting paler. Only if you know where to look, Kent thinks, and feels the nervous anger in his stomach get hotter.
“Maybe I am, actually”, he spits out, “if you saw that, you’d stop spending your time writing that shallow shit we both know you hate.”
Jack takes a step closer, all at once. Kent would say he always forgets how much taller Jack is, except for how that’d be a lie. He remembers. Remembers the one dusty morning six years ago Jack spent crowded over him, huge frame filling out almost all of Kent’s field of view, hands searching, pulling, teasing. Gasping in his ear, broad shoulders shuddering against Kent’s chest. He would’ve made a great football or hockey player, Kent used to think, and then how lucky everyone was Jack liked music more than sports.
Now he looms over Kent once again, close, too close to think clearly. He blurts out what the confused anger and the fluttering in his stomach, twisting, burning into his insides, tell him to: “You’re better than this.”
Jack’s face is furious, all of a sudden. If he was upset before, panic Kent recognizes too late, it’s gone now. All he can read on Jack’s face now is fury. Something below, but he can’t tell what it is. He’s still too irritated and angry to really try.
“You don’t even fucking know what you’re talking about!”
“I fucking well do, I’m in the same fucking boat as you here!”
Jack laughs. It’s not funny.
“No, you’re not. We both know that.”
Kent wrenches his eyes shut for less than a second, then open again. Jack looks furious. He feels livid. He’s so over this. “Why do you keep insisting on doing this this way?”
Jack rolls his eyes, steps even closer. There’s barely ten inches between them now.
Jack’s getting progressively louder as he bites out, through visibly clenched teeth: “I don’t fucking insist, you just keep turning up when I don’t expect you to and look like this and don’t shut up about how I’m better than what I do and-”
“-that’s because you are, ” Kent interjects, can’t keep his mouth shut, even louder to be heard. Jack’s always been more talented, more hardworking, more made out for this than him, and now he’s doing music he wouldn’t have bothered even looking at before. Just because someone fucking told him he had to do it. And he just keeps doing it.
“You know what, Zimmermann? You think you’re too deep into it to produce something actually great, huh? You’re too scared? Well, maybe you should decide for yourself instead of whatever your dad says next time you record a song, just to see what that feels like.”
As soon as Kent says it, he knows that was one step too far. Jack flinches back, reflexively. His face shutters. Kent feels himself breathing heavily.
Jack’s voice is eerily calm when he says: “You should go.”
Kent presses his lips together. Suddenly, he’s aware of his hair drying and sticking in uncomfortable places, his shirt clinging against his skin. A street over, a car horn blares. He nods.
And then, just when he thinks he’s feeling okay again, like he can think again, almost at the end of the little back alley, about to step out onto the street, he turns. Jack is still standing where he left him, by the backside exit of Founders, wearing a Montreal Canadiens hat and a faded The Strokes shirt. He’s still looking at Kent. Abruptly, Kent’s chest aches with an intense surge of melancholia and longing. There’s no anger, right now. All he can see is the boy he wrote more songs about than about anything else, the man strung tightly between expectations. It’s all of a sudden, when he opens his mouth, calls across the distance: “Text me?”
Jack doesn’t say anything back, but he lifts his hand as if to wave, just long enough for Kent to see. The streetlamp next to him casts his hair in a soft glow. He lowers his hand again. Kent turns again and goes to find his bandmates. The evening isn’t over yet if he doesn’t let it be. There’s got to be at least one bar still open that serves shitty beer and plays even worse music. Kent texts Holly about their location and waits for the Uber, then looks up for a moment. The night is startlingly clear, a few stars bright enough to spot even through the lights of Philadelphia. And then, right before Kent’s ride pulls up, he gets an email notification from a contact he’d thought he’d deleted years ago. Concert tickets for tomorrow, the subject line says, and Kent can't help the thought that this might end up being the stuff he could write some more songs about.