Trevor peeled off his muddy sock while Brian drove them back to the Consortium. “The foot’s fine. A few cuts and bumps from rock-stones is all.”
[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]
“I don’t know what you tangled with,” Brian said. “But it wasn’t just rocks and twigs. Nothing smaller than a bear could have torn your shirt off like that.”
“Brian, will you keep quiet what happened? Everybody knows too much about me already.”
“Trust me.” Brian parked and indicated that Trevor should wait: he’d help him so Trevor didn’t need to hop to his cabin. Inside Trevor’s bathroom, Brian dabbed his brother’s cuts and wounds with antiseptic. Seeing that his foot and ankle weren’t sprained, Trevor was set. In the last few months, he’d had full rounds of rabies shots and tetanus boosters. One doctor had prescribed a series of antibiotics, just in case. The puncture wound just left of his breast bone looked deep.
“Keep an eye on that one,” Brian said, scanning the cabin’s spotless glass walls.
“Wanna smoke?” Brian had to ask. This wasn’t even new anymore.
“Math this afternoon,” Trevor said. “Maybe there’s enough time.”
In the kitchen Trevor lit his pipe and passed it to Brian. Fully dressed, Trevor looked fine—and not like he’d been mauled by an angry mamma grizzly. The cut on his cheek could be anything.
Saturday night then he performed with Awake same as ever. Now the band played two sets and Alison the manager sold tickets to their shows, twenty-five dollars apiece. Two drink minimum but the bartenders said Trevor’s crowd only drank bottled water.
The band’s CD was selling so fast that mailing it out became Destiny’s part-time job. But on stage Leon and Marvin featured Bob Marley songs over their own. Earle’s chants and drums still opened and closed the show.
The audience stood still when Trevor sang:
“Most people think, Great God will come from the skies, Take away everything And make everybody feel high. But if you know what life is worth, You will look for yours on earth…”
When they were not still with devotion, the audience danced feverishly in a deliberate effort to rejoice. They didn’t touch or take partners but wound around in a circle that rhythmically curled and unfurled.
Brian watched from the cat-walk as they danced and stopped in reverence, danced and stopped. He had listened to Trevor singing Bob Marley songs for so long, with the band and solo, that sometimes the lyrics dallied in his head. He knew how biblical the words were. Bob Marley’s songs told about slavery and freedom, poverty and revolution, corruption and redemption, and Jah’s love. A friendly, seductive beat to rock the world. So all night, from above, Brian saw the people dance and stay still, dance and stay put.
Then Earle started his last chant and Trevor disappeared. The audience stared at the spot on the stage where he had just stood. They remained silent through the last refrain and didn’t move while the other band members packed up. For an hour after Awake had departed, the Avalon staff kept the quiet mob from the dark stage where they begged to leave a personal item, a token of themselves. Just this once.
“Sorry.” And finally the people filed out.
How could Brian ever worry about his little brother ever again? The man played his music completely unfazed by such weirdness. Their crew made massive money. And Trevor would just smile and rest easy. Saying he “feel no way” about it.
(Click here to read the next episode)
