Not the Beatles

“Boone?”

“Yeah?”

“Where are we again?”

I felt through my pockets for the crumpled piece of paper and tossed it to Jerry.

I heard Jerry fumble for the paper, sending an empty beer bottle gloing-gloinging along the linoleum. I heard the sound of paper unfolding. Of Jerry turning the paper over.

“Boone?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s today?”

I opened my eyes. “Give me the paper.”

Jerry slowly folded the paper and tossed it. For a drummer, he had weak arms, as the bit of paper I’d managed to toss to his feet barely made it out of the circle of influence Jerry maintained around his skin and bones.

“Boone?”

“Yeah, Jerry?” I said as I got out of my chair to retrieve the paper.

“Where are we again?”

I picked up the paper and stuffed it into my pocket. A water cooler in the corner. I filled a paper cup, drained it, filled it again and chased an aspirin down with its contents.

I unfolded the paper.

“September 13th, Tuesday. Rochester.”

“Where’s that?”

“New York.”

“Can we see the Statue of Liberty out the window?” Jerry got out of his chair and strained to see through the blinds and grease.

“Upstate New York, Jerry. Not New York City.”

Jerry sighed. “Damn Yanks.”

He sat down again, found his drumsticks, drummed the air in time to the sound of the band playing onstage.

“This drummer’s rubbish,” Jerry said after a moment.

“So are we, Jerry. So are we.”

Still, we were in upstate New York, far from the liquorice-reeking warehouse where we started in Pontefract.

Onstage, the drummer crashed into the hi-hat.

“He’s knocked it over,” Jerry said, grinning. “Such rubbish.”

And the audience screamed.

Not as loud as when They performed. But show them a little long hair, a few guitar riffs, a drummer with a modicum of skill and a big nose, and they screamed. Even louder when you stopped singing and spoke the Queen’s English. After each session with the dialogue coach was also repaired our amplifiers, the screams got louder.

And we got paid.

Not in liquorice, either.

The coach said we’d probably get louder screams, if Jerry’s nose were bigger. He wanted Jerry to sleep with a drumstick up each nostril to see if he could stretch it out. But Jerry refused.

Typical.

But I should talk.

I should – like a bloody Liverpuldian. That’s what coach says. But I’m not that drowsy. “I know they’re popular,” I said to coach. “I know they’re why we’re here and not playing the pubs in Ponty and getting stones thrown at us. But I am me.”

“That attitude, you always will be,” coach snorted.

I hated his tiny guts. But he was right.

The onstage band rattled and twanged and crashed to a halt and the screams from the audience made the mirror on the wall rattle.

“Boone?”

I sighed. “Yeah, Jerry?”

“Where are we tomorrow?”

A fist banged twice on the door. “Three minutes!”

“Doesn’t matter. Get ready.”

“Yeah,” he said. He remained still in his chair, drumsticks clutched in his left hand like a pair of schoolboy pencils. He stared at the floor.

“Boone?”

“Yeah,” I snapped.

“I want to go home.”

“Yeah.”

That’s him. Mediocre drummer quiet, nervous, moody before a performance. And after, a mediocre drummer always, but then a bit hungry and ready for a laugh.

There were the others. I forget their names. “Four acts is where it’s at, particularly with that accent,” the booking agent said. Boone and I were a duo, so he threw us together with another soppy pair. We practiced for a few hours together on a rolling night bus and figured our sounds were probably similar enough – through the screams – that it didn’t matter if we practiced any further. We swapped singing lead or backup, depending on whose Liverpuldian was better each given day.

“Let’s get out there.”

“We’re not The Beatles, Boone,” he said. “We’re not even the ‘-les.’ We’re awful.”

I opened the door and a wave of screaming poured through like sunlight.

“Doesn’t appear to matter, Jer.”