Checker and the Derailleurs. Lionel Shriver

his arms are too long, a vein on his temple protrudes. He jitters around the stage in a panic, constantly adjusting amp settings and checking the jacks, in the grip of some terror, but only nineteen—what is there to be afraid of? Rachel, lost in her big maroon sweater half unraveled down the front, is arguably mousy. She always looks at the floor. Rachel is Bowie’s original China Doll, perched on the edge of the stage—when she shatters you won’t want to be around to pick up the pieces. Someday someone will have to take the blame for Rachel DeBruin. J.K.? One more hunky black kid, likes his beer, his rock and roll—a known quantity. Hijack, whose real name is Rahim Abdul, is too pretty for a boy. And in New York you sure get tired of foreigners. Those accents aren’t quaint or exotic anymore after about week 6 here. From then on, it’s just, I need a cabbage, a small one; Excuse—? A cabbage! Like that. Quiet Carl never says a damn thing, and who needs that. As for Howard Williams, their “manager”? Squid. Boat shoes! Oh, he isn’t exactly ugly—Howard has even, regular American features with nice thick brown American hair—but to whatever degree looks are style, Howard is hideous.

      However, it would be possible to execute a little turn like flicking the channel over and back again; the picture, black and white a moment before, blushes to color. Suddenly the spotlight on stage shadows Caldwell’s face with the exotic expressions of a Kabuki mask. He has long, elegant fingers. His hair is bright gold. True, he’s frightened, but at nineteen there’s plenty to be afraid of, like the rest of your life. Rachel is no longer mousy, but delicate. If you circled your thumb and middle finger around her wrist, both end joints would overlap. J.K. is big rather than fat, comfortable and unpretentious as an overstuffed armchair. And so what if Rahim is pretty? Beautiful teeth—matched pearls, a two-string smile. Further, sometimes it’s possible to recuperate that delight in foreigners you had when you first came to New York. His r’s roll like water. Quiet Carl has a story, and you like stories. Howard is handsome, and you’re dying to tell him that. You want to take him shopping and buy him some shirts with color and jeans that don’t hike up like that, Hi-Tops instead of boat shoes. But you won’t. And Howard will keep buying the pale plaids and jeans that are big in the waist and short in the leg, and that makes you smile, because people are astonishingly consistent, so carefully themselves. You don’t mind. Why, he’s the only person you know who wears boat shoes.

      What if you added Checker Secretti to this picture? Well, if your mood is sour, Checker isn’t very impressive. Few people seem to notice that he isn’t very tall, but you would notice. His brown skin, kinky hair, and blue eyes would disturb you, for you can’t quite tell what race he is, and it’s stressful when people resist normal categories. You might say he’s “cute,” but he’s no head turner. Not even as straight-out good-looking as, say, Eaton Striker. In fact, you would think this specifically: Not as good-looking as Eaton Striker, since, if you were eyeing Checker Secretti with just this narrow annoyance, you would be Eaton Striker.

      But if you feel fine? If you understand that people are attractive not just for their strengths but for their shortcomings? Then how would Checker Secretti look?

      You might see the shadow of a nose, the flicker of a hand, a rolled-up sleeve of bright red cotton, but you wouldn’t see the man from head to toe, and it wouldn’t occur to you to wonder whether he was a head turner, because, leaning in the frame of the door, you would have to be Checker Secretti himself.

       2 / blood and crystal

       … and when you finally reappear / at the place where you came in / you’ve thrown your love to all the strangers / and caution to the wind—

      “Sheckair!” Rahim stopped cold in the middle of “Love over Gold” and unstrapped his sax to bound from the stage. The rest of the band dribbled off; Eaton was the last to stop playing. Running to the doorway, Rahim clapped Checker’s hand and turned him fully around like a square-dance figure, laughed, and planted a big, unembarrassed kiss on each of Checker’s cheeks.

      Between three and five, Plato’s usually settled down to a small core of customers; The Derailleurs would put away their instruments and everyone put his feet up. The drinking slowed to a trickle, and even diehard rockers grew philosophical. Not tonight. They all pulled on their coats when Check walked forward, slinking out of the club hastily as if leaving the scene of a crime.

      “You just get here?” asked Caldwell, fidgeting with his gig bag.

      “Caught some of that last set.”

      “Yeah, well.” A strap was caught in the zipper, and Caldwell went about solving the problem intently. “Just screwing around. You weren’t here.”

      “We’ve been through this.”

      “Well, you can’t expect us to be any good,” Caldwell burst out, “without you.”

      Checker’s eyes were steady, neutral. “It was interesting.”

      “You are toast, man,” said J.K.

      “I am a little tired.” Checker turned. “Howard, you arranged a substitute. Good management.”

      Howard envied Rahim’s leaping Virginia Reel, but could only swing an awkward, premeditated hug. “You look terrible!”

      “Thanks, Howard.”

      “No, I mean—”

      “You mean I look terrible. Mr. Striker?” Checker pulled a tattered paper from his pocket and read, “Drummer Extraordinaire.”

      Eaton felt embarrassed by his own business card, and glared as if the pretentious tag was Checker’s fault. Checker only looked back at him with exposing directness. Eaton felt discovered. Yet when Eaton glanced away and back again, Checker’s expression no longer appeared incisive. There was a deadness or calm in the corners of his blue eyes—blind spots. If Checker were a car, it seems, Eaton Striker would be positioned perfectly behind the right back fender.

      “Some drumming,” said Checker.

      “It’s a battle, with these tubs.”

      “The drums are supposed to be on your side.”

      “These aren’t very responsive.”

      “Calf heads are subtle.”

      “I don’t think of drums as a subtle instrument.”

      “Yes. I can see you don’t.”

      Checker smiled slightly, and Eaton felt condescended to. His chin rose in the air. “Antiques, aren’t they?”

      “’Forty-eight,” said Check. “A good year.”

      “Might consider replacing them. The shells made now are smaller, tighter, sharper. These are muddy.”

      “Thanks for the advice. But I’ve had these since I was nine. If I replaced them they’d be hurt.”

      “And when you forget their birthday, do they cry?”

      “I don’t know,” said Check mildly. “I’ve never forgotten their birthday.”

      Check eased into a chair and leaned his neck over the back, closing his eyes. Rahim dipped a napkin into the ice remaining in a drink and wiped across Checker’s forehead. “Sheckair don sleep?”

      “Not much, Hijack.” No one asked him where he’d been. No one asked him why he hadn’t slept.

      While Check dozed, Rahim cooled the drummer’s neck and patted it dry with the tail of his shirt, rearranged Checker’s collar, and finally stood at attention beside him like a bodyguard, eyeing Eaton occasionally as a potential assassin. The rest of the band quietly packed up and helped the waitress clear drinks. No one talked, but gently the acid dispersed from the room, the heat clanking up from the basement with a fresh burst of steam. Shyly they found each other’s picks and spare strings. Sweeping up, Caldwell decided that fifty dollars wasn’t very much money, after all. J.K.