Page 148 of Dirty Like Brody
Seth
Six monthslater…
“You knowDirty’s looking for a newguitarist?”
Mark slid onto the barstool next to me with his phone in his hand, and my chest burned a little at his words; that creepy heartburn feeling I got whenever I heard mention ofDirty.
Davey, sitting on my other side, leaned over to look at the phone. “Fuckin’ news site,” he grunted. “You know they’ve got porn on the ’net,right?”
Trent cackled, stomping up behind us in his cowboy boots. “Yeah. We’re gettin’ real tired of all the videos of your old lady though. Seen ’emall.”
Big Jake, behind the bar, ripped the phone from Mark’s hand. “Who needs porn when you’ve got this.” He touched the screen, spreading his fingers to enlarge animage.
“Hey, Big J,” Trent said, knocking on the bar, “gimme theusual.”
The bar had shut down for the night, customers cleared out and it was now just the four of us, sweaty and spent from a long night of playing music under the lights, and Big J, cleaning up. Everyone was drinking but me. And Trent, because he didn’t have his beer yet. But Big J was too transfixed by Mark’s phone to pullbeers.
“Whadya say, Becks?” Mark asked me, and I felt all eyes converge on me. “You see yourself in thebigtime?”
No, I did not see myself in the big time. Or at least, Todd Beckerdidn’t.
Seth Brothers had temporarily retired, and Todd Becker was now in the house; I’d appropriated the name from my dead father, just a regular name for a regular Joe. Though my parents were far fromregular.
It wasn’t forever, but it was for now and it suited me fine. Todd Becker didn’t have to deal with lawyers and paparazzi and accusing stares wherever the fuck he went. Todd Becker was nobody. He played in a dive bar down south for shit pay, but no one really knew who he was or where hecamefrom.
Which meant I could be left alone to do what I loved—playguitar.
As long as I kept my beard grown in like a thicket and my hat pulled low, no one gave a shit who I was. No one cared who any of us were so long as we showed up to the gig and played what was expected, which was CCR covers. So long as we knew ‘Born on the Bayou’ and ‘Proud Mary’ and ‘Bad Moon Rising,’ we were fucking golden. Around here, I was just the quiet dude who played guitar and slept in one of the tiny rented rooms above the kitchen, and perpetually smelled of barbecue becauseofit.
“What is it?” Davey leaned over the bar, angling for a look at the phone again and scanning the article. “One of those stupid realityshows?”
“Documentary series, whatever the fuck that means,” said Big J. “They’re filming theauditions.”
“Gettin’ thirsty here, J,” Trent complained, still waiting onthatbeer.
“You’re good enough, Becks,” Mark said. “You shoulddoit.”
“Yeah. To hell with the guitarist position, though,” said Big J. “They don’t hire you, just take Elle to bed. I’ll never get the fuckin’chance.”
Trent, impatient, headed behind the bar to pull himselfabeer.
I sipped my water. My heart was beating steady and slow, but hard, as I asked, “Rhythmorlead?”
Davey burst out laughing. “Jesus, you’re cocky, you think you can fill Jesse Mayes’boots.”
“I’d like to fill his ex-girlfriend,” Big J mumbled, still thumbing through the article and droolingoverElle.
“You know, I met her once, in an elevator,” Davey said, settling back on his stool. “’Bout five, six years ago, when I was playing out in L.A.. She’s prettier inperson.”
“You didn’t fuckin’ meet her,”Marksaid.
“Isawher,” Daveyclarified.
“Dirty?” Trent snorted, pulling up a stool and taking a grateful swig of his beer. “The fuck is that? You wanna go play with punks?” Trent was a hillbilly, so in his mind Dirty was punk, Zeppelin was glam, Nirvana was noise, and all of it was trash. He only tolerated CCR because it paid the billsaroundhere.
“Dirty’s not punk,” Mark said, then elbowed me, waiting on some kind of reaction. “You should try out, atleast.”
“Yeah,” Davey said, “if they come ’roundhere.”
