Secret Story

"So now you're wondering what I mean by the secret story? asked my friend. Well the secret story is the one we'll never know, although we're living it from day to day, thinking we're alive, thinking we've got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn't matter. But every single damn thing matters! Only we don't realize. We just tell ourselves that art runs on one track and life, our lives, on another, and we don't realize that's a lie."*

I. Your hands shake when you hold the microphone. You don't trust your voice. You know all your friends are watching, but you can't help the shaky attempt at harmony that follows. Karaoke terrifies you. The words go across the screen, but they're hard to read, uncertain like everything else. You've been told you can do this. You try one more time. You don't recognize your voice when it comes out of the speakers, singing a song you didn't write.

II. I work for ten hours and cut a few corners to get out early. I have to get to the show before the second bands starts. I show up and nothing's started. No one's even talking. I go across the street and have a few beers with the people I rushed over with. One does karaoke and the other buys beers. I wish I had the nerve to sing a song but I can't stand the anticipation of waiting to hear my name called. The song ends. We finish the beers. Across the street the show starts without anyone noticing, but we're there just in time to stand around.

III. You figure out how to play guitar, you think, this is easier than singing. There is a comfort in the rhythm, not like the awkward cadence and meter of your voice. You practice to Ramone's songs in your room. There will be late nights, but there will be some progress. You "figure it out." There will be pedals, cords, and equipment. Your friends like it.

IV. The band at the show makes me want to go home and work on things I started months ago. I have to finish this or that project, I have to do something after watching them. The two people playing sounded great together. Proof that something can be done. I know I nodded my head, moved my feet around, but the whole time I was thinking "I have to get home, I can finish that sentence now." I get a record, I literally ask for the one "with the weird slow songs on it" and I balance it across my handle bars. I begin a story in my head while I bike home, "your hands shake when you hold the microphone..."

V. You make it to the show in a town you've only read about. Your friends aren't there. You are singing in a band for the first time and your hands still shake when you hold the microphone. You hold the guitar close like you could be dancing. Everyone stands in a weak half moon in front of you, but they tap their black shoes when your voice comes out awkward, then clear. You have no idea if anyone really liked it, but you get a few smiles, and someone buys a record. You see them biking off alone one by one and you go back to your van. You sit in the dark and tell yourself you're not alone.

*Roberto Bolaño, Dentist