Beneath the Stain - Part 1 Read Free Page A

moves, the kind he’d seen the rock stars do on television. “And you , you’re gonna be too cool for all that shit.”
    It worked. Jeff grinned and pulled his lanky, slight body into his habitual slouch, but this time it looked purposeful. It was like Jeff found himself in that description, and Mackey beamed.
    “So that’s three songs,” Kell said, frowning. “We know Nickelback and Offspring, and the Skynyrd.”
    “Yeah, but they’re sort of old,” Grant said with a wince. Well, Grant’s dad could afford satellite radio. “We need something newer.”
    “Well, how ’bout Cage the Elephant—”
    “No!” Kell commanded sharply. “Mackey, all them songs’ll get us kicked outta school.”
    Mackey bared his teeth and started the patented Matt Shultz spazz-strut. “We don’t care about the glory—”
    And Grant picked up the guitar lick. “We don’t care about the money, we don’t care about the fame…” and just that quickly, their little garage band launched into “In One Ear” and Kell was left with nothing to do but pick up the lead guitar and join in.
    The song ended abruptly, and Mackey swung his hands and his ass in time—then snarled at Kell, still wearing his stage face.
    Then he dropped the snarl and gave him the stage “Am I stoned or just fucking with you” smile. “Yeah, not that one. How about the Broken Bells single?”
    Grant shuddered. “Naw, man. That song gave me the creeps after I saw that redheaded girl in the space video. Can’t we just do the Bravery and ‘Believe’?”
    And it was Mackey and the rest of the boys who all said, “Yes!” because just like the Muscat and the burned-out car, Grant really did have the best ideas.
    “So, we do ‘Satisfaction’ and ‘No Rest for the Wicked,’” Kell said, still taking care of details.
    Mackey conceded to Kell’s choice of classic Stones—because they’d already rehearsed it, for one—and to the “clean” Cage the Elephant song, and gave a fierce I’ll-eat-your-baby smile. “Kk, guys. Jeff, give us a 3/4 rhythm, two chords, C and G, bu- dum -bu- dum -bu- dum —like a heartbeat, right?”
    Jeff started that, and then Mackey went to his keyboard and started playing the first riff for Kell. Kell was rock solid on the beat, and he’d play anything Mackey gave him—and fast—but he wasn’t much for improvising. The improv line he gave to Grant. Stevie had picked up on Jeff’s thumping bass and started to keep up a dual rhythm on the cymbal and the bass drum, and Mackey nodded. Good. They had the basics now.
    Into the solid sets of chords, he started to sing.
     
    You’ll hear me screaming in the mountains and the valleys far away,
    Over oceans over planets over moons.
    You’ll hear me tearing out my tonsils and my voice will never fade,
    I’m begging and I’m pleading just for you.
    I know you do not want me, not even on my knees
    I know you want another—I got that.
    But you can’t hide away from screaming from the begging and the pleading
    ’Cause you know you coulda had me on my back.
    A kiss is not a promise or a broken vow disguise
    And the meaning of it’s lost if you get lost inside my eyes
    So think hard about my eyes about my hands about my mouth
    Think hard about my stomach and the mystery in the south
    And I’ll scream to get you hard upon your back!
     
    The lyrics were hard-driven, borderline filthy, and everything he’d wanted to say to Grant from that moment shotgunning pot smoke in the vacant field.
    But you didn’t say that to another boy in Tyson, California, and that was okay. Mackey strutted in their little circle and kicked out with the mike stand and wiggled his hips, and not a girl on the planet wouldn’t think he wasn’t pining for her and her alone.
    The first run-through was always rocky, and he finished the lyrics and let the band rattle and die to an end, then turned to them, seeing if they liked what he gave them.
    Jeff and Stevie were nodding, and Kell scowled in that way