Page 99 of Dirty Like Brody
He saw me looking and gave me a drunken, prideful grin. “Don’t wanna miss the fuckin’ show,” he shouted at me over the music. Then he raised the cup over his head, roared like some crazed barbarian—and threw the cup, piss and all, into thecrowd.
Thank God he tossed itawayfrom me. But I took that as my cue to get out ofthere.
My heart was pounding, blood thrumming through my body; I felt all weirdly disoriented as the floor I could never see through the tight crowd came up to meet my feet, everything around me at once off-kilter and hyper-vivid.
I’d once stepped onto a city street without looking. The noise of a jackhammer on concrete from a nearby construction site had blocked out the sound of an approaching bus, and the bus had whipped past me so close that it literally spun me around. I had never felt so uncomfortably alive as I felt in those first few seconds after near-death. Squished into that mad throng, as Dirty’s music beat the shit out of that crowd, I felt that samefeeling.
So frighteningly, gratefullyalive.
By the time I clawed my way out of the crowd and security let me backstage, and Jude looked down at me with a hooked smile and said, “Satisfied?” I was laughinghysterically.
* * *
As it turned out,I didn’tfuckup.
Once I was poised to strut onstage, I’d realized that all I really had to do was go out there and play a fucking song. Dirty would take care of the rest. Anyway, their fans were ravenous, insatiable and loyal, and in truth, there really wasn’t much I could do to fuck things up. A Dirty concert was a thing unto itself, and it was way the hell bigger than me. It was bigger than any oneofus.
That was a freeingthought.
Zane said some beautiful things about me, about who I was and the work I’d done writing songs with the band, only some of which I registered; I just kept going over the song in my head, like if I didn’t it might suddenly vanish—the chords, the words, all of it. But at some point, I definitely heard Zane refer to me as both a “genius” and a “goddess.”
Nopressure.
Dylan and Elle had just come offstage, following a killer performance of a Dirty classic, “Runaround,” which I’d co-written with the band. Elle hugged me and Dylan kissed my cheek. Jimmy handed me my guitar, I heard my brother say my name, and Maggie actually had to give me a little shove to get my feetmoving.
I strapped on the guitar as I walked onstage, smiling. It wasn’t a fake smile. I saw Jesse and Zane beaming at me and took my place between them. I was aware of the screaming of the crowd, the vibrations of the applause in the old wooden stage beneath my feet. There were lights in my eyes, but I could see the sea of faces on the dance floor in front of the stage, beyond the shoulders of the security guys. I was still stunned by how loud it was out here, how many people they could jam into such a smallplace.
I thought of that guy tossing his cup of piss into the crowd, and just hoped no one threw piss at me. I figured we were taking a risk slowing things down for an acoustic song at this point in the show, but I trusted Dirty knew their audience. Really, we could probably piss in a cup onstage right now and the fans would eat it up. Zane would probably do it, too, if he thought the fanswantedit.
But we didn’tdothat.
Instead, we played one of my favorite Dirty songs fromLove Struck, “Road Back Home.” I knew people probably expected me to play “Dirty Like Me” with the guys, since it was our most famous song, but when they’d asked me which song I wanted to play, I chose this one. I’d written it with my brother after our mom died, and it was one of my favorites; I’d always thought it was a song she would’veliked.
One of the most painful things about losing her, for me, was that she’d died before she got to hear oursongs.
I thought about her now as I played, and a calm overcame me. Not a numbing calm or a pretend calm, but a deep, genuine calm. The music flowed. I was pretty sure I sounded better than I did in practice at the church, but maybe it was the sound system or the acoustics in the place, or maybe it was just that I was sohappy.
For just those three-and-a-half minutes, up there onstage with my brother and Zane, singing our song, I felt truly at home. I could pretend we were just playing for our friends, around a fire, and it feltright.
As the song ended, I exhaled in the silent pause. I saw the sparkle in my brother’s eyes, maybe because he was getting sweaty and sparkly all over under the lights, but maybe it was the emotion of the song. Then the crowd went ballistic, the guys hugged me, and Zane shouted “Jessa Fucking Mayes!” into the mic as I walked offstage, giving the crowd a final dorky wave in answer to their whistles andscreams.
Elle and Dylan hugged me tight, then they headed back onstage as Zane started telling the crowd some story. Maggie, with a giant smile on her face, wrapped me in a hug and said, “You’re amazing. You know that, right?” Katie jumped up and down and kissed me. Jimmy kissedme,too.
Brody met my eyes, but he didn’t say a thing or move totouchme.
And I just felt relieved that it wasallover.
I got in position to watch the rest of the show from side stage; I knew they only had a few more songs to go, so I could just enjoy this part of the show and try to get my heart rate back to normal, now that my partwasdone.
Except that it wasn’t really done. I still had Brody todealwith.
“So, as you all know, my favorite guitar player in the world cut a solo album last year, and then he went on tour,” Zane was saying onstage, obviously talking about Jesse, “without me.” There wereboo’s from the crowd at this. “I know. It was brutal. And he had a great time. Sold a fuckload of albums and blah-ditty-blah, oh, and he fell in love, with this totally coolchick.”
He paused as the crowd’s applause and hoots and whistles drowned him out for a good minute or so. Katie was next to me, grinning, and I put my armaroundher.
“And meanwhile,” Zane went on, “while I was bumming around down in L.A. just kinda feeling sorry for myself,” —pause for sympatheticaww’s from the crowd— “I was walking down the beach one day and I heard this guy playing guitar, and it was really good.” Now the crowd gave up someboo’s on Jesse’s behalf. “Naw, guys, it was good,” Zane said. “So good, my heart kinda stopped.” The crowd quieted down to listen, something in Zane’s voice holding everyone captivated. “I went over and I told him, you gotta come play with me sometime. So he did. And we had a great time.” I had no idea where Zane was going with this, but tingles were creeping down my spine when he took a breath and said, “So great, we asked him to come tonight and play a song with us. Come on up here,brother.”
I peeked out over the crowd as people started shuffling around, craning to see. A couple of security guys were moving through; they were escorting someone to the stage. He had on a trucker hat, pulled low over his wavy brown hair and freshly-shaven face, but the crowd started recognizing him just asIdid.
