Page 3 of Tumbling Hearts

The rest of their interview goes on like that, lighthearted and answering questions about being a band and making music. Ray had watched episodes of the Mike Douglas Show before and heard him ask other musicians harder questions, such as about interpersonal relationships, drug addictions, and the like. He’s no stranger to asking the tough shit. But perhaps Mike is being easier on the Brooms since they’re a newer band. Ray appreciates that.

Soon enough, their interview wraps up, and the Dusty Brooms move to another area of the set where they’ll play a song. While it takes them a moment to get situated, it won’t matter when it finally airs—the boring downtime will be cut on the tape when the episode broadcasts next week.

With Ray’s microphone in front of him and the rest of the Brooms with their instruments, a stagehand gives them their cue to start.

Pat clicks her drumsticks and sets them off. Gene’s guitar riff opens the song, followed by Stefan’s powerful bass and Santiago’s lead melody—performing their debut single, ‘Fly High’. While not their most popular song, it’s certainly one of the most special to Ray. This song is the very first one he and Gene wrote together. The first original they ever performed live, the first one they ever recorded. And now, it’ll be their first song on television, too. Ray dances for the cameras, shaking his hips and swaying to the beat. Contrary to Gene’s nerves, Ray feels excited knowing so many eyes will be watching him at home on their TV sets, thousands and thousands of them. He smiles as he jives, coming closer to the mic to sing the verse:

“A love so beautiful, so divine,

Goin’ outta my way to make her mine.

Footsteps dancin’, to and fro,

Oh baby, I can never let her go.”

He dances some more, as Santiago leads the instrumental section with a solo. After a few more bars, Gene walks up to Ray, huddled up close to him to sing the chorus together into the same mic:

“She flies me up like a plane, higher and higher.

There ain’t no way I can deny her.

‘Fly high, baby, fly away with me.’

She’ll be the star of all my dreams.”

Their faces are so close, their cheeks brushing against each other. It sends butterflies throughout Ray’s whole body. The camera zooms in on them while they sing, too—catching their intensity on tape. To think, everyone at home will be seeing this. Gene and I, together. It stokes a flame in Ray’s chest, and when the chorus is over, he makes eye contact with Gene. His best friend smiles back at him, strumming his guitar, the sequins on his blazer sparkling.

Ray knows, without a doubt, he truly would love to perform like this with Gene for the rest of his life.

Finally back home at the Lake Orion farmhouse, Ray sits with Gene on the shag carpet of Ray’s bedroom. Gene has his acoustic guitar in his lap, strumming the chords to their song ‘Burn it Down’. Ray sings the lead and Gene sings the harmony, their voices melting together with each note. It’s always so pleasant like this—sitting alone with Gene, nothing else but them and their music. They aren’t writing anything new at the moment, but that’s alright. Sometimes it’s nice to just take it easy and play older songs, or even covers.

Ray would like to write more with Gene, though. But lately, it’s never really felt like the right time to try. They’ve been so busy with recording, finishing up their second album, and then the television appearance on the Mike Douglas Show. And yet there’s still much they have to do with the album before it’s complete, namely compiling a final mix. When Ray does end up finding alone time with Gene, usually it’s cut short. Carol pulls his attention away one way or another, or it’s another one of the other Brooms doing so, since the entire band is living together. Sure, they’re alone now, but for how much longer until Carol comes upstairs?

Ray thinks harder on that. Why should he be annoyed at Carol for simply wanting to spend time with him when she’s his fucking girlfriend? Shouldn’t he be more welcoming? If anything, Ray has been looking forward to the days when Carol is at work with a modeling gig. He knows she has another one coming up later this week, before the Fourth of July. But he shouldn’t hold such animosity towards her—she never did anything wrong, always being so nice to him.

Well, aside from that time when she snapped at me about the Quaaludes.

He suspects that maybe she’s still taking them, but he also hasn’t been paying much attention. She seemed to not want him to anyway, so it all works out. ‘You’re not my keeper,’ she’d said.

But Ray knows, without a doubt, the root of all his confusion with Carol is caused by none other than Gene. His mind is so preoccupied with thoughts of Gene that he looks forward to his time with his best friend more than anything. He can’t stop thinking about the sensual things he and Gene have done: the kiss in the dressing room in New York, more secret kisses in Las Vegas, and even getting sexual in that bathroom in Phoenix…

They haven’t done anything romantic like that since, though. The closest they’ve gotten was holding hands a few times, and that can be excused as merely being friendly. But that’s all they can be, right? All they should be. Two men in a rock band that’s famous across the entire nation.

Friends.

But it feels like we have so much more…

“Hey Ray,” Gene says once he’s done strumming his guitar, finishing the song. “The Fourth of July is this weekend, ain’t it? Yeah, because it’s the end of June.”

“Yeah.” Ray nods.

“We weren’t planning on doing anything then, were we? I think we have a few more free weeks before we need to work on anything. Since Dennis wanted to give us a break after the tour and such.”

Ray adjusts his sitting position, leaning a little closer to Gene. “No, I don’t think any of us have anything planned. But I think it’s supposed to be the big Bicentennial, though, coming up. So if we wanted to plan something, we definitely should.”

“Yeah, the Bicentennial!” Gene smiles. He pulls his guitar off his lap and sets it down next to himself, leaning it against the bed. “All over the country, there’s probably going to be some crazy fireworks shows. We should find a place to watch them; I’d love that.”

“For sure.” Ray smiles back. “Now, where are the big fireworks shows gonna be…”