Coming Clean Read online

  Coming Clean

  Jeff Ross

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  Copyright © 2012 Jeff Ross

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Ross, Jeff, 1973-

  Coming clean [electronic resource] / Jeff Ross.

  (Orca soundings)

  Electronic monograph.

  Issued also in print format.

  ISBN 978-1-4598-0333-6 (PDF).--ISBN 978-1-4598-0334-3 (EPUB)

  I. Title. II. Series: Orca soundings (Online)

  PS8635.O6928C66 2012 jC813’.6 C2012-902628-X

  First published in the United States, 2012

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2012938311

  Summary: Rob wants to be a DJ, but when a girl overdoses during his first gig and his brother is implicated, Rob realizes he could lose everything.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover photography by Getty Images

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO BOX 5626, Stn. B

  Victoria, BC Canada

  V8R 6S4 ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

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  Custer, WA USA

  98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  15 14 13 12 • 4 3 2 1

  For the real Rob and Matt.

  Remember, these characters are,

  for better or worse,

  fictional.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter One

  The problem with my brother is that he is far too often full of it. Which is why I was skeptical when he said he’d landed me a DJ gig at the local all-ages club.

  “Friday night,” he said.

  “Seriously, Adam, don’t mess with me right now.” I was in my room trying to beat-match an old soul record with a white label drum-and-bass LP. It was not going well.

  “I’m serious, Rob. I got you this Friday night!”

  “Adam,” I said, taking my headphones off and silencing the stereo. “DJ Sly does Friday nights at The Disco.” DJ Sly was a ridiculous name for a DJ. The Disco was a ridiculous name for an all-ages club. And yet, at that time, I would have done anything to be DJ Sly playing at The Disco. Proving yet again that life, at its core, is a cruel joke.

  “Do you mean the DJ Sly who just recently took a nasty tumble and busted his wrist? That DJ Sly?”

  “What?” I said. “I never heard about that.”

  “That’s because it happened yesterday, and you, as far as I can tell, have been locked in here for the past week.” He looked at the floor, where there were piles of dirty plates and glasses. Mom had been working double shifts, leaving the two of us to our own devices.

  Always a bad idea.

  Adam is taller than me by about three inches. He’s also thicker. I’ve never been able to break 120, pounds while Adam is a steady 160. He is far too fond of hair gel. His black curls are totally glued to his head. I have longer hair and let it do what it wants. And yet there’s always talk about how we look so much alike. Adam has small eyes, which some people might refer to as beady. And his nose is a little too big for the rest of his face. It’s these kinds of characteristics that people seem to become depressed about. Like, there’s nothing you can do about the size of your eyes or nose, but people are going to make you feel bad about it anyway. Adam also had some pretty severe acne for a while, and his constant action against the angry red balls has left his skin pockmarked and rutted.

  In the end, though, neither of us are hideous. But Adam has cared too much for too long about how he looks, and now he often walks hunched over with a hoodie pulled up around his face. Though I have noticed that in the past few months, he’s begun to stand a little straighter.

  “Anyway, Sly is down for the count and he needs a replacement.”

  “And how did you get me Sly’s night?” I dropped my headphones around my neck. I then cleared a bunch of records off my bed to make room to sit down.

  “I’ve been working there. You know that.” Adam leaned against the door frame and examined a fingernail.

  “So you’ve been saying. What, exactly, is your job?”

  “This and that. What does it matter? I got you the night, Rob. You can do this, right? I haven’t just made myself look like an ass on your account, have I?”

  I looked at my crates of LPs. A lot of DJs had moved onto digital MP3 turntables. But MP3s sound awful, in my opinion. When you put a poorly encoded song through a giant system like they have at The Disco, it sounds like you’re listening to music underwater. Everything is floppy and round-sounding. Records are crisp. The beats, hard.

  Besides, I can’t afford a laptop to run it all.

  “For sure,” I said, sounding as confident as possible.

  “It’s a big night, man,” Adam said. He hadn’t moved from the doorway. I knew exactly why. He wanted to be thanked for his awesomeness.

  “Yeah, it’ll be huge. Thanks, man.”

  “No problem.” He swiveled off the door frame and put his fist out in front of him. I gave it a quick pump.

  “How long is my set?”

  “Three hours. You go on at nine.

  DJ Lookie takes over at midnight.”

  “Awesome,” I said, getting excited about it. “Thanks, man. Seriously.”

  The next thing I did was call Matt.

  “He’s probably dicking you around, Rob,” Matt said.

  “Really? What’s he going to do, suddenly tell me it was a joke when I show up with my gear?” I opened my curtains and was surprised to find it sunny out. I guess I did spend too much time in this small, dark room.

  “Like that would be a surprise?” Adam had tied Matt to a tree with a skipping rope once, when we were all kids. Matt had been unable to ever forgive him. On a fairly regular basis, I heard about what an ass my brother was. Though after I punched Matt in the gut once, he tended to keep it to himself unless we were on the phone.

  “Why do you have to be such a douche?”

  “I’ll believe it when you’re in the DJ booth. Not a second before,” Matt said.

  “It’s going to happen, Matt. And by the way, you’re driving me.”

  “I don’t go to The Disco. That place is way too lame.”

  “And what great plans do you have for Friday night?” I asked.

  “Nothing yet, but something will come around.”

  “Nothing ever comes around, Matt. You’re driving me. I’ll get you backstage.”

  “Backstage at The Disco? Oh, my prayers have been answered! Christmas has come early! My next five birthdays have been squished into a little ball and rolled down the hallway of happiness. Backstage at The Disco!”

  “Shut up. Maybe I’ll let you up in the booth. You can flick a light on and off all night.”

  “Can it be a green light?” Matt said.

  “Think you can handle two lights? I might let you at a red one as we
ll.”

  “It is Christmas!” Matt said. “Hey, I just had a thought.”

  “Jesus, man, hold on to it. In your head, a thought is as rare as a diamond.” Matt ignored my comment. He’s useless at comebacks.

  “You know who has recently been spotted at The Disco?”

  “Who?” I said. I hadn’t been to the club in over a month.

  “Mary Jane McNally.”

  “How do you know that?” I said way too quickly.

  “I hear things. Apparently, she dresses far less reserved than at school.”

  “Mary Jane McNally is God’s gift to Resurrection Falls, Matt. Whatever she decides to clothe herself in has been preordained from on high. And those lips. Those beautiful, thick lips. They look as though they’ve been inflated.”

  “You have it bad, man.”

  “You are my ride. This is going to happen.” I hung up before he could say another word.

  Chapter Two

  “That’s my name,” I said. “Can you see it?” Matt’s dilapidated Jetta was one of only four cars in The Disco’s parking lot.

  “It’s covered in crud,” Matt said. Which it was. Whoever had put the letters in the billboard had dropped one and neglected to clean it off. “It looks like it says Rob olo.”

  “It says Rob Solo,” I said. Before I had clued into the fact that once you have a DJ name you have to keep it, I’d called myself Rob Solo after Han Solo in Star Wars. I guess it was a cool enough name. But even if it wasn’t, I was stuck with it.

  “You have selected a beautiful evening to make your debut,” Matt said. The snow had been coming down for hours. Though it did make this otherwise dull gray city look halfway nice.

  “I have,” I said, opening the car door.

  “Now help me get this junk inside.”

  “What’s all this shit?” Ernie, the owner of The Disco, asked.

  “My records,” I said. “And turntables.” Matt was trying to keep his portion of the load upright, but his arms were like twigs.

  “I gotta put this down,” he said.

  “I have turntables,” Ernie said. He seemed really annoyed with me. “Have you never played a club before? Everyone else shows up with a computer or a little hard drive.”

  “I don’t use mp3s,” I said. I noticed Adam coming across the dance floor toward us.

  “Why not?” he asked.

  I looked at my feet. “Sound quality,” I said.

  “What are you talking about? You think my system is shit?” Ernie said.

  “No, I mean…”

  “I’m seriously going to drop this stuff,” Matt said.

  “Hey, Rob,” Adam said. “Right on time.”

  “He brought his own gear,” Ernie said to Adam. “You told me he was professional.”

  “He is, man. He is.”

  “So why doesn’t he know that clubs own turntables?”

  “He’s particular, that’s all.”

  “Okay, I’m putting this stuff down,” Matt said, looking around for somewhere to drop the turntables. Adam grabbed them, one in each hand, and placed them on a table near the door. Ernie crossed his arms and looked at the turntables like they were flattened-out turds. He was an older guy, likely in his fifties. Kind of round in the middle and balding. You had to wonder what he was doing running an all-ages club.

  “There are turntables here, Rob,” Adam said.

  “Okay.”

  “So give them a try. If they aren’t right for you, then I’ll help set these up. Cool?” Adam looked at Ernie.

  “Just be ready by nine.” Ernie walked away, disappearing into the darkness of the club.

  The Technic decks were serious old-school. The felt was worn down, and the needle could have been sharper, but they had a nice weight to them, and the arm still bounced when I dropped it on an LP. The sound came out soft and hollow. I started messing with the mixing board, twisting the bass up, leveling out the mid, tightening the treble. I always went for a specific sound, and it took a lot of tinkering before I was able to nail it.

  I got an old Underworld song going and tried to beat-mix a new Kid Cudi remix into it. I’d been practicing this at home but knew it needed to be dialed or I wouldn’t use it. Somehow I managed to get the two songs perfectly matched, and the mix was seamless.

  “Sweet!” Matt yelled.

  “Great sound in here!” I yelled back. The DJ booth was raised above the dance floor. It felt strange to be so high up. I pulled another record out and replaced the Underworld. When I looked up again, Adam was in the middle of the dance floor giving me the thumbs-up. I went back to the turntables, trying to mix the next song in.

  I’d just got the next song flowing when someone shoved me hard to the side. I stumbled and tripped over one of my record crates, my headphones popping off as I went down.

  “What is this shit?” DJ Sly said. He ripped the needle across the LP. The speakers all snapped with the sound.

  “Sly, what are you doing?” Adam yelled from the dance floor.

  “What’s this all about? Who is this clown?” Sly was looking down at me. He was in a white V-neck T-shirt and too-large jeans. He had one of those oversized brimmed hats on, this one with a giant star on the side.

  “That’s my brother, man,” Adam yelled. “He’s filling in for you tonight.”

  “I don’t need no replacement.”

  “Dude,” Adam shouted. Then he walked to the stairs that led to the DJ booth and looked up at us. “Dude, how are you going to play records with a broken wrist?”

  “I’ll manage.”

  “Listen, he’s only taking half pay. You still get a share.” Sly looked at me, then back at my brother.

  “I get a say in what he plays. It’s still my night.”

  “Sure, man, sure,” Adam said.

  “And I’m still going to use the mic. He is not to touch the mic.”

  “I don’t even think he’d want to. Would you, Rob?”

  “No. I’m cool,” I said, standing up and brushing myself off.

  “Whatever,” Sly said. Then his face changed, and he looked at my brother again. “You and I need to talk,” he said, climbing down from the booth.

  “What an ass munch,” Matt said, once Sly and my brother had disappeared into the chill room at the back of the club.

  “I always thought he’d be way cooler,” I said.

  “That was not cool,” Matt said, shaking his head.

  I put my headphones on the mixing board and slid the records back into their sleeves. I was shaking, though I wasn’t sure if it was from nerves or because of what had just happened.

  Either way, it started to feel like it was going to be a long night.

  And it hadn’t even started yet.

  Chapter Three

  Half an hour later, there were people entering the club, knocking snow from their hats, then lining up for the coat check.

  I tried to keep my mind off the fact that I was not in my room, practicing. That I was actually playing live. For an audience. I lined up my next five songs in a crate, put my headphones on and bent down over the turntables. I decided I would not look up again until all five of those songs had been played. Then I would check the crowd.

  I was three songs in when Sly clambered into the booth and grabbed the microphone.

  “You all ready for this!” he yelled. The suddenness of it made me jump. “I said, are you all ready for this?” I was playing Skrillex “Right In.” I pulled the record back, scratching out a new beat. Sly pumped his fist. Yelled into the mic, “Tonight is your night, my people. Tonight anything can happen. Tonight is the night for you to step outside of yourself. To let your inhibitions fall away. To do what you want to do. There are no rules here. What is it you want to do? What is it you want to say? Tonight is your night.” He hit the fog machine, and the dance floor filled with smoke. I switched to DJ Dean’s “It’s a Dream.”

  Sly suddenly put the microphone down without switching it off. The feedback squealed through th
e speakers. I hit the fader for the mic on the mixing board and went back to the records. Sly punched me on the arm.

  “Where’s your brother?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. I was trying to concentrate on the mix.

  “You haven’t seen him?”

  “Last I saw, he was with you.” Sly stood there looking around the club. I went back to my records, and once I got a new mix going, looked back up. I spotted Adam immediately, chatting up the coat-check girl. I pointed him out to Sly. He jumped down from the booth and disappeared into the crowd.

  About an eighth of a second later, Matt was beside me.

  “That is so douche,” he said.

  “The propaganda, or dropping the mic?” I said.

  “All of the above.” Matt flipped a couple of light switches, then stared out at the dance floor. “Who knew this place got so packed so early. Must be something special happening tonight.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m playing.” I laid the next record on the turntable and took in the crowd. Though most people were leaning against the walls or talking in little clusters, there were at least thirty people dancing.

  “Did you see that MJM just arrived?” Matt said. I almost knocked the record off the turntable.

  “Where?”

  “Coat check.” Sure enough, Mary Jane McNally was taking off her coat and revealing an outfit so lacking in material that I almost forgot where I was. She was talking to Amanda Palmer. The two of them were covering their mouths with their hands and laughing.

  “Your song’s running out.” I flipped the headphone back over my ear and quickly set up the next track. The beat-match was not amazing, but it worked.

  “Close,” Matt said. I checked out where Mary Jane had been standing, and she was gone. I scanned the area.

  “Where’d she go?”

  “She’s talking to Sly,” Matt said.

  “She knows him?”

  “Dude, I’m just giving you the news here. No background intel available. My advice to you right now? Play something good.” I dropped a Deadmau5 LP onto the turntable and tried to ignore the fact that MJ was out there listening.