Marlene “Marr” Holland
New York, New York


“This is going to be great” Cave whispered as he gripped at my arm. He had forgotten that the authorities frowned upon bringing bottles of scotch onto the plane- for some horrendous reason!- so he drank most of it in the security line, and only relinquished it when a steely eyed TSA agent prodded him through the metal detector.

To mourn his loss he ordered a Guinness at an airport restaurant, then another one and another until his mutters of “I’m a very nervous flyer, I’m a very nervous flyer” faded into “‘I’m a very drunk man,” and ended with his head crashing into his plate of half-eaten pasta.

We stayed in the restaurant for an hour and a half, him babbling and drinking, and me reading the latest issue of the NME- the one with them on the cover. I had read their interview repeatedly, imagining each of their British voices as they laughed and joked and eyebrow waggled and coyly wound in and out of the interview, successfully winning the hearts of the people who adored fey British boys and wore scooter helmets with their tailored suits as an act of protest again the dice roll that resulted in them being born twenty years after the mod scene ended.

Finally he lifted his head and muttered something along the lines of “let’s go to the terminal,” and so I was met with the task of escorting a drunk man I had met only a week and a half ago through an airport.

That night it seemed like a good idea, when I was pretending to be the girlfriend of a proper conservative suburban boy, who looked nothing like the one I met at the record store. He had traded his mod suit for a blue polo and khaki pants, and I saw the visible discomfort dapper men felt when being put in clothes that were in no way stylish. Even his conversation was sheared of any of the quirks and snark that had brought me here in the first place. I thought I was only doing it for the promo poster that hung behind the counter, but at the end of the evening of myself pretending to be the kind of girl who owned a pleated skirt, he drove me home, shouting about each and every homophobic slur that was spat out in that “we’re all in this together mentality” and he rolled the windows down so the tears in his eyes could be passed off for the wind whipping against them, and as we drove further and further into the clutches of normal society, the darkness grew ever darker and the music became so loud it was becoming a part of us, a part of the mountains that hung in the distance and the stars that hung nearby and suddenly that deep gulch between strangers was being sewed up for we were both creatures who had to shout to be heard, shout above the heavy bass and the swaggering vocals and the people who didn’t understand or care or feel. He turned to me and above the pulse of the music and clunking of the car against the interstate he shouted, “Cranberry Chaser is going on tour, let’s follow them around the country.” and in that moment, their music was driving me into a drunken stupor, and the darkness behind us and the blinding city lights in front of us filled me with an intense happiness that, like any other high, would leave me crashed and miserable later. But that was later, what he was suggesting was later, growing older was later. Law school could wait, but my band, my beloved quartet was going to get old and die in my lifetime and one day I’ll see their names written among the lists of others that have faded away but never into obscurity, because bodies will fall apart and melt away but CDs and vinyl will remain until the humans of the future brush them off with archeological tools and wonder what they were for, make up a use and put them behind glass for humans of the future to look and at gawk and try to imagine, but you can never imagine the past, the clunky computers and the choking smoke and the bigotry that drove a son from his own family. But here we were, living in someone’s past, thinking about our future.

“Let’s do it.” I said. And look at us now. The weight of his head heavy in my lap as we waited for our plane. He muttered softly to himself, he said there was many things he would do, but his fear of dying over shadowed them all, even plane riding was terrifying to him, but if his grandmother could do it, he sure as hell could, although she could also shoot a 16 millimeter, and last time he tried he had to go to the emergency room because the kickback knocked him though a glass door- his parents not accounting for their son being an enormous weakling and not being able to handle the simplest things. He told me this story on the cab ride over in some weird bonding exercise between me, him and the cabbie that translated him into explaining his every injury, each of them hilarious looking back- and to me and the cabbie it they seemed hilarious then too. They were probably all made up though, he had the markings of the kind of guy who talked a mile a minute just so you could hardly figure out what he was saying let alone if it were true or not.

He sat up. “Areweboardingnow?”

“In a minute.”

“SorryIfellasleeponyou.”

“It’s okay. Am I still getting that promo poster?”

“Whenwegetback.”


New York could never be overhyped or overblown. All I know about it came from Hollywood films and gritty TV shows and surprisingly, the crazy sleepless world I saw on flickering screens was replicated right in front of my eyes. Cave had woken up sober and aching and a bit sorry and he apologized for his previous bleary state as we pushed through the mad crowds of people who never met your eyes.

In the back of my mind, I knew that Cranberry Chaser was here in this exact city, and there was a chance, an impossible one, that I could spot them out of the corner of my eye, as they staggered about in the same wonderment that was affecting Cave and me.

Sheffie, with his tiny waist and little wobbly hips would probably push his sunglasses off of his face and flail his arms around, pointing at this and that and remarking on the melancholy of it all, just as in every interview he sat in a sharp, tight-fitting suit and played with his hair as spoke about his latest exploit and the melancholiness he encountered. It seemed only normal that he would clutch his guitar case close to his heart and see only the romantic sadness of the city.

Misha would walk alongside Sheffie, ignoring his every word and arm tug and would instead be gazing at the buildings around her, hand and mind itching for pen and paper to write a beautiful tale of love and loss in a big American city, a story that would push on beautifully until the end [if she got that far] where it would come to a screeching halt with suicide, alcoholism, general despair and helpless comments of how futile and meaningless life was.

Rory Forster would be trailing behind, as drummers do. With his bright spiked up hair and tight leather jacket, he was an aging punk who was never informed that he was no longer playing in a Sex Pistols cover band. He would act like he wasn’t impressed by anything, as he had done for years and years of standing in crowded, falling apart clubs listening to one angry band after another rail about how bollocks it all really was. But actually he was more impressed by more things than any other member of his band would ever be.

Finally, Keir would walk with his head down, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, his fantastic hair tottering unsteadily above him. His hands were probably shoved in the pockets of his military jacket, or perhaps fiddling with a cigarette that he never smoked. And everyone would be looking at him, for he exuded that causal cool that attracted eyes wherever he went. He always looked like he was posing for a gritty black and white promo picture or starring in an edgy music video that would lead people to over-examine and exclaim “What does it all mean!”



Flinging yourself across the country was exhausting, even if you were sitting the whole time. We collapsed on our bed in the cheap hotel we rented, burying our heads in the mountain of oddly shaped pillows. We had packed light, just three bags between us- two suitcases full of clothes and one suitcase record player and Cranberry Chaser’s entire discography.

We lay like that for a while. Cave muttered “Sometimes I have a hard time deciding which one I want to sleep with.”

“Why do you have to pick one?”

“Because in my hypothetical situation I can only pick one. It’s a mental game, you see.”

“I don’t.”

“Who would you choose?”

“I haven’t really thought about it. Sheffie Waddington probably.”

“You said that too quickly to have never thought about it.”

He rolled over on his side and smirked at me, his blinding blue eyes close to mine, his face already sporting travelers scruff.

Of course I had thought about it.


We bought sandwiches at some convince store and sat down on a bench to eat them, letting the enormity of the city envelope us. I half wanted to just stay here, forget the wild plan, forget the tickets we’d already paid for, forget the fact a broke college graduate couldn’t live in New York for long.

“So even Rory?” I asked.

“Especially Rory. He’s the coolest bloke in that band, I mean think about it. That’s how you stay young even if you’re 50, just refuse to change with the times. If you’re a punk when you’re 20, stay a punk when you’re 50, if you try to join a younger subculture you’ll see how old you are, if you stick with the old stuff, it’s like nothing changed. Great way to get a grip on your mortality. Delusional, maybe, but how else to deal with mortality than delusion?”

He wiped a bit of mayonnaise off his mouth with his jacket sleeve.

“I’m sorry about your family.” I blurted out.

“I’m used to it.”

And that made me feel even worse. Utter, total resignation was one of the worst things to witness, to see someone who finally let go of all the anger and sadness and resentment and decided just to shrug and take it, well, it hurt to see it. Especially when you knew he wasn’t used to it, how could he be? Here he was, in a tight pinstripe suit, arms crossed, leaning against the brick building, with his styled mess of hair and two toned dress shoes he was the coolest person in this city block at least, and he could probably win the hearts of all three of the blokes in Cranberry Chaser, yet the way his parents talked, they’d kick him out of the house in a heartbeat.


We were practically first at the door, there were two other people waiting, a small frizzy haired girl with a Joy Division shirt and her boyfriend, a guy with swirl of ginger hair. They were friendly and giddy, drunk on the mere thought of seeing their favourite band in concert. She complimented us on the outfits were pulled together using the contents of our two suitcases, and then we rattled off our favourite albums and songs and parts of songs and bass lines and guitar parts and drum parts, dissecting the songs with a mad, dizzy sort of fervor, we ripped them apart and tried to put them back together again, but gave up- because there was something in their large, sprawling atmospheric sound that mere amateurs could never pinpoint.

There is something about the flushed faces of strangers and the sharp hand squeeze you received when the doors opened, or the feeling of walking into a dark, drafty venue and realising that you were going to see them for the very first time. It’s times like those you realise that you are truly, truly happy. Because although we’d be seeing them 22 times, there was nothing quite like that first time. That nervous, frenzied first time, when you clung to the stage and clung to your new friend’s arm and let the energy sweep you up and deposit you down with the final chord and you find yourself shaking, your knees gone weak, and all you can think to do is keep clapping like a maniac so you can change their minds and draw them back out thinking, “let’s give em what they want, let’s go one more time, why the hell not?”

And next thing you know you’re standing on a street, ears ringing and sweat drying on your back, streetlights and headlights and the excited talking of people tossing around phrases like “best show ever” and “I’m going to quit my job and just see rock shows every night.” And for that moment, that drunk, exhilarated moment you want to throw away your life and just follow them around, see rock shows every night.

And then starting up at the stars, the stars that tease and laugh and prey on you when you’re at your weakest, showing how futile it is,and how small you are and how there has to be something bigger, something- something out there, some reason. You clutch your new friend tightly and realised that you are. You are going to see rock shows every night and you hope helplessly that you’ll find a bit of yourself along the way, you’ll come to the Great Realization. The Meaning of everything. The Reason behind it. Because in the shallow hours of the night, in the very chords and impenetrable insanity of the music, in the people and the faces and the dreams and the bond you build that can’t be broken there’s Something out there. Something.


Because if there’s not, there’s just Nothing. And then what the hell would it all be for?