The Player (Chicago Bratva 8)

I lift the amp onto the stage and set my guitar down beside it then walk around to climb the stairs and set up.

“Hey, bud. Who’s your friend?”

Girlfriend. I don’t know why it pisses me off that we’re not using that word. I want full rights to this girl. I want to own her world as much as she owns mine.

“This is Nadia. Nadia, my dad, Shawn.”

“Hey, Nadia.” He tips his head my way. “You two hang out last night?”

Ugh. My stomach turns at his assumption she’s nothing more than my hookup from last night.

Nadia’s smile wobbles.

I lace my fingers through hers. “We hang out every night. Nadia is my muse.”

There. If I’m not calling her my girlfriend, I’m going to wear the hell out the title she’s letting me use.

“Your muse, eh?” My dad flashes a grin that I know looks just like mine. “Everyone needs one of those. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you,” she says.

“Oh, you’re Russian,” he says when he hears her accent. “Like Oleg?”

“She lives in the same building as Story and Oleg. That’s where we met.”

“Nice. You like music?”

“I love it. Especially when Flynn plays.”

“Great. You’ll get to see him sing quite a bit this afternoon, too. He’s going to play frontman.”

“Oh good!” She claps her hands together. “I want him to play frontman more with the Storytellers, too. His fans want more of him.”

My dad slides me a questioning look, and I experience a smudge of shame over my newfound popularity. No, not shame. Guilt.

Like I shouldn’t have the thing my dad wanted so badly but never quite achieved. I think he wanted to be bigger than U2. Bigger than The Rolling Stones. Like the Beatles with the screaming females throwing their panties and fainting when he went by.

He got plenty of action–don’t get me wrong–that was the source of my parents’ nine breakups–but never the adulation he truly craved.

I’m not sure how I even know that. He’s never come out and said it specifically, but he’s my dad. He’s said things here and there that allowed me to piece together that his dreams were deferred. Dried up like Langston Hughes’ raisin in the sun.

I know he’s bitter that his bandmates never were able to write their own hits. They fell back on playing covers of other popular 80’s rock songs and eventually stopped creating their own music. I suspect drugs and alcohol abuse had something to do with that. My dad’s fully functional, but I’ve certainly seen him in as many valleys between the peaks as I’ve seen my mom through and all related to excessive partying.

My mom’s breakdowns are just more honest. I don’t think my dad has ever taken the time to look at his own baggage.

So I haven’t mentioned anything to my dad about our recent success, other than telling him about the music videos we did with the skateboarding stars a few months ago. I doubt Story has told him, either.

It occurs to me that my fear of eclipsing my dad may be another one of the reasons I never tried too hard with the band.

Even now, I find myself hoping Nadia won’t say more about the fans. Or our growing success.

I look around at the setup of the stage. There are no wings on this one, it’s just a semi-circle in a corner. “There’s no backstage here, Peaches, but if you sit front and center, I’ll sing every song just for you.”

Nadia pretends to swoon which makes me laugh. “Okay. Give me your phone.”

I love when she makes demands of me. I hand her my phone, knowing she’s going to start posting photos, videos and live streams of me. I don’t mind because it makes her happy. I think it gives her something to do, and she feels safer viewing the world through the lens of the camera, and that’s fine with me.

I plug in my amp and tune the guitar, and my dad goes through the playlist. They’re all classic, fun songs. The style is totally different from the Storytellers, but it’s the music I was raised on, so a piece of cake for me.

The place is about one-third full, but it’s still early, and the band hasn’t started playing yet. I’m definitely not too proud to play to an empty bar. Hell, the Storytellers spent three years playing to however many people showed.

Nadia takes the table in front and orders a burger and fries while we finish getting set up.

We start with the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up” with my dad on lead vocals which perks the crowd up. Nadia props my phone against her purse on the table to stream it.

We go right into Boston and then a Chicago song and some Van Halen.

I have a good time singing to Nadia, maybe showing off a little. There’s a little part of me that’s making fun of the oldtimer music, a little part paying homage. It’s all in good spirits.