Fifteen days chapter one

I’ve been slowly working on a novel called “15 Days.” How knows if or when I’ll ever finish. So, here on ongoing drafts for you to read. Below is chapter one.

Marlene  |  May 19, 1989

“Say my name like you mean it!”

The DJ’s voice cut in. “That’s ‘Take A Number,’ the opening track from How To Be Loud, the brand-new release from the hard-rocking 15 Days. It’s their third release in just five years, and the follow-up to the EP Fire Alarms Don’t Work Here. Their new tour starts tonight at The Bat on Lansdowne Street where fans are already gathering. We’ve got something special to get you ready for the show: 15 Days live in the studio. Luca Dolan, on drums, Rina Calderón on lead guitar, and Marlene Vega on bass and voice, welcome back to Boston.”

The DJ pointed at the trio from behind a console with enough buttons, knobs, and switches to make a NASA engineer anxious. Seated against the far wall, Marlene, Luca, and Rina were each positioned in front of a mic that was clipped to a boom arm. They wore over-the-ear headphones with long, coiled cables.

Marlene got close to her mic. “Yo! yo! Yooooo! You’re so happy to have me back in your fine city, Boston.” She hitched the heels of her calf-high boots onto her stool, her auburn hair surrounding her thin face like a lion’s mane. 

Luca adjusted his headphones. “I want it noted that I got up at nine in the damn morning for this.” At 25, Luca was fit save for the paunch that bulged from beneath his Bob's Big Boy T-shirt. The tattoos that covered both arms and protruded from the shirt's collar suggested there were even more not immediately visible. “We’ve been in Boston before, but this is our first radio interview, so thanks for having us. Even if it is way too goddamn early.” He elbowed Rina, who had her arms folded across her chest and sunglasses propped atop her shaved head. “Say hello to the good people, Rina.”

“Hello to the good people, Rina.”

Marlene turned to the DJ. “That’s why she doesn’t write the lyrics, Dan.”

Dan said, “I know you don’t have long this morning, so let’s get right to it: the new record, the tour, the noise—everything. But first, for all the kids at home—how did this band even start?”

Marlene said, “Well, we started in the Furnace Room, which was what we called Rina’s mom’s basement. Back in high school, we couldn’t afford a rehearsal space. I autographed a support beam down there. That place is holy now.” 

And now I’m being interviewed on WFNX in Boston, Marlene thought. I earned this. I deserve this.

“It smelled like mildew and sounded like God,” Luca said.

“The basement, not Rina’s mom,” Marlene said. “We were three kids who barely knew how to play. I mean, it was awful. But I believed that someday we’d do a radio interview before headlining a mid-tier venue that was sticky for reasons best ignored.”

“You were awful,” Luca said. “I wasn’t.” 

Marlene pointed at him and said to Dan, “This from a person who hits things with a stick for a living.”

Rina leaned forward. “Marlene would put her bass amp right next to my mom’s water heater because it rattled when she played. There was a metallic ‘wrrrr wrrrr wrrr’ with every note. She called it her ‘reverb’ before she could afford a pedal. My mom would shout, ‘Stop shaking my water!’”

“Now I have three pedals,” Marlene said, laughing into the mic.

Dan turned to Rina. “A rock band in the basement. Your mom must have been a saint.”

“Yeah,” Rina said. “And her neighbors were very patient. Or deaf.”

“And now here you are with your third album, ‘How To Be Loud,’ which is the first 15 Days album to be released on vinyl, plus an East Coast tour visiting twenty-three cities. Not bad for three kids who didn’t know what the hell they were doing. What’s changed between this record and the last?”

“Oh, we got better” Marlene said. “We got loud, we got real, and we figured out how to rip the skin off a feeling and make it sound good.”

“Damn. Okay!” the DJ said.

“She’s been waiting all morning to say that,” Luca said.

“All week,” Rina said.

“She practiced in the van,” Luca said. “I decided to find it ‘charming.’ But just to get back to your question, this album was the most time we’ve spent in a studio. We recorded our first album, ‘15 Days,’ in The Furnace Room with a 16-track recorder. We had a little outside help with mixing and paid for the cassettes ourselves. ‘Fire Alarms Don’t Work Here,’ the second album, went down the same way. This time around we had the benefit of, you know, a producer, and an engineer. People who know what the hell they’re doing. Like a real band.”

“Marlene, Rolling Stone once described your voice as–”

“Whiskey in your Cheerios,” Marlene said. “Page 54. August issue. Don’t act like I forgot.” It wasn’t just a quote, it was a tattoo on her ego. Proof someone out there got it. Got her. She never forgot a compliments that sounded like insults.

“Yes. How do you feel about that?”

“Depends if it’s my favorite kind of whiskey,” she said.

“Which is?”

“A double.”

Dan said, “Let’s take a few phone calls. Kelly, you’re on in Eastie. Go.” He flicked a switch on his console. Her shaky voice crackled in their headphones.

“Marlene, you are so fucking ho—“

“And that does it for phone calls,” Dan said, abruptly flicking a switch on his console. “Don’t know why I thought that was a good idea. Marlene, what can fans expect at the show tonight?”

“An Abrams tank called 15 Days. We’re a Roman candle in your grandma’s backyard. We’re the secret in your sister’s purse…” here she leans into the mic and drops her voice an octave, “but you know you want it.”

Rina, laughing. “And that’s why she does write the lyrics.”

“Let’s talk about Violet Days. Is it ‘violet’ or ‘violent?’ Are you singing to a boy or a girl?

There it was. The question.

It always came, Marlene thought, from someone who thought they were being clever—like ambiguity hadn’t been the whole damn point. Boy or girl? Violet or violent? You want the truth? Put on some headphones and turn it up.

“It’s all the same to me,” Marlene said.

Luca grabbed his mic. “We wrote Violet Days while touring for Fire Alarms Don’t Work Here. Rina had this riff that Marlene said ‘sounded purple,’ whatever the hell that means. About a week later, a song was born. We still haven’t recorded it, but sometimes we play it live. The rest was Mar’s nonsense.”

Dan said, “Whenever you play it, Marlene kisses a fan.”

“I give them the sacrament,” Marlene said.

"Will you be ‘giving the sacrament’ at The Bat tonight?” Dan asked, hoping for the answer listeners wanted.

“If the mood strikes,” Marlene said.

Luca put an arm around her shoulder, laughing. “Is that what we’re calling Jack Daniels now? ‘The mood?’”

The DJ glanced at his clock again. “That’s our time. Guys, thanks so much for coming in and congratulations on the new album. Boston, you can catch 15 Days tonight at The Bat, starting at 9:00. Tickets at the door.”

Dan removed his headphones. “And we’re clear. That was fucking awesome.” As the band rose and removed their headphones, Dan noticed an intern on the other side of the door, pointing at the disposable camera in her hand. She was maybe twenty, wearing a ratty station hoodie with the sleeves pushed up. She raised her eyebrows and gave a little “thumbs up?” gesture.

Dan nodded. “Guys, mind if we get a quick shot for our photo wall before you all go?” 

“No man, that’s cool,” said Marlene. 

The girl entered the room. The DJ said, “This is Sam. She’s sort of our do-everything intern.” 

Luca said, “Hi, Camera Girl.”

“Hi,” she said, a sheepish grin on her face. “Hold still.” She brought the camera to her eye. “We like to put these on the bulletin board.”

Luca leaned back, throwing up a peace sign. Rina didn’t look. Marlene dropped her sunglasses back onto her face and flashed a sharp grin—somewhere between flirt and dare.

Click. 

—-

Rina eased “Rolling Thunder,” their E-Series Econovan, along the narrow alley, leaded exhaust belching from her tail pipe. “Why must every loading dock be in an alley the width of a goddamn coffin?” she said. Last year in Philadelphia she lost the passenger-side mirror to a utility pole.

“I’ve wondered about that myself,” Luca said. “Because challenges build character?”

“Well, I wouldn’t mind one thing being easy,” Rina said. “All right, here it is.”

She brought the van to a stop and whispered to herself, “This is the part I hate” as she shifted into reverse and squinted into the remaining side mirror. “It’s just you and me,” she told it. The van crept backwards until it came to an abrupt stop, tossing Rina and Luca against their seat belts.

Marlene’s voice rose from behind the driver’s seat. “Hey Rina, maybe try not further damaging our van.”

“You’re more than welcome to get your ass up here and drive anytime you like,” Rina said as she put the van into park and opened her door. She took one last pull of her cigarette before adding it to the filter graveyard in the ashtray. “No? I didn’t think so. All right, let’s go.”

The butterflies in Marlene’s stomach stirred. The start of a new tour was always exciting, and they had played hundreds of shows, from high school proms to bars that were just above a dive. “A high dive,” she called them. But this one was different. 

This was a venue, not a bar, Marlene thought. There would be staff, engineers, and fans. This place holds 500 people. No, it wasn’t Boston Garden, but it was another step towards what she wanted since a water heater was her reverb pedal. Towards what she deserved.

Rina’s boots scraped the pavement as she jumped from her seat. Luca opened the passenger door, and Marlene climbed out from her spot between the front seats and the gear. Rina stretched her arms above her head and let out a sigh. She put her hands on her hips. “Why are we still doing this shit? We should have a roadie.”

“Because Rolling Thunder is life, Rina. Would you abandon her, roadside?” She draped an arm across the van’s faded hood, as if offering comfort. “Don’t listen to her, RT. I know she hurt you again. It’s OK, Momma loves you.”

Rina rolled her eyes. “Jesus Christ Marlene, it’s a fucking van.”

“I’ll buzz,” Luca said, as he approached the building. Beyond the curb was a heavy service door. Chipped paint suggested it had been, in its past, green, yellow, and red. An array of stickers provided a layered microcosm of The Bat’s history.

A Lisa Frank unicorn.

A “Hello my name is” sticker with “SOUP” in black marker.

A sketch of a rat wearing a red sweatshirt with “REEFERMAN” across its chest.

Just below the buzzer was a small, black-and-white vinyl that read “CROSSFIRE.” Rina pointed at it. “Hey, didn’t we play with them once?”

“Yeah,” Luca says. “Good drummer.” He pressed the buzzer and a muffled rattle sounded from the other side of the wall. “Someone is going to help us with load-in. Craig something. Did you catch that, Rina? They help us carry all this crap inside. We’re like a damn band now.”

“Easy, Springsteen,” Rina said. “We’ve still got a ways to go.”

There was a metallic thunk from behind the door, and it began rolling upward, screeching and whining like it was being dragged to hell against its will.

Standing on the other side was a so-skinny-he-shouldn’t-be-ambulatory stagehand in a sleeveless Morbid Angel T-shirt. A black bandanna obscured his head, and a trio of keys dangled from a string around his neck. His hands gripped the handle of a wheeled cart.

“Hey,” he said, cigarette smoke framing his gaunt face like a blue-collar demon.

“You Craig?” Rina asked.

“Yeah. You got your shit?”

Luca gestured at Marlene, walking toward them with a guitar case in each hand.

“Giddy up,” Craig said. He pushed the cart past them to the back of the van.

Marlene reached Rina and Luca. “Does every venue have a Craig?” she said, and walked inside.

—-

The Bat’s main room stretched wide and it was dark, all scuffed concrete and ghosts of old shows. A bar ran the length of the back wall, sticky with spilled liquor, a brass rail, and a quilted facade of black faux-leather. Overhead, a tangled crown of lighting rigs washed the floor in shifting hues as the tech ran his pre-show checks. The ceiling yawned above, ventilation fans softly humming inside matte-black ductwork.

Even empty, the space recalled its history. Artifacts were everywhere: the chipped stair rail that once bore the smash of a Telecaster; graffiti under the lip of the bar; a line of gaffer tape that would never come up.

The stage rested at the far end, raised like the throne in a low-lit cathedral of sound. Monitors lined its edge like teeth. The entire room held the stored energy of a lioness coiled in the shade—ears forward, eyes locked—waiting for the first thing dumb enough to flinch.

Luca searched his stick bag as he approached the stool behind his drum kit, “Thou Shall Not Sit – Luca 3:16” embroidered on its seat. He found a pair he liked, hooked the bag onto his floor tom, sat down and took indiscriminate whacks at his snare, toms, and cymbals as the sound tech in the booth gave a thumbs up or thumbs down.

Stage right, Marlene stood with her black-and-white Rickenbacker 4003 hanging low at the curve of her hip. Rina stood with her, a clipboard in her hand, talking with The Bat’s freckle-faced, twenty-something sound tech whom Marlene had dubbed “Freckles.” Freckles had a swishy ponytail and smelled of clove cigarettes.

Rina said “If you’ve got a DI for bass, great. If not, we’ll mic the cab—just don’t breathe on it too hard.”

“That means make my bass sound good, Freckles,” Marlene added.

“Got it,” she said. Then to Rina, “What else?”

Rina ran a finger down her clipboard. “Basic mix—kick/snare in monitors, some bass. Marlene likes light reverb. I do not. And never, ever give Luca a mic. I don’t care what he says. A mic encourages him to sing. And that encourages me to cut my ears off.”

“Got it,” said Freckles. “OK let me get down to the board and we can start a sound check.” She walked off the stage.

Rina tossed her clipboard onto the floor. She lifted her white Melody Maker from its stand and put it on. Adjusted the “Have a Nice Day” pin on the strap. Picked the G-string, turned its peg a half-step sharp, picked the string again. Satisfied, she looked up.

“Okay,” she said into her mic, dragging her pick along all six strings, eliciting a distorted growl. “‘Furnace Room’ on me. One, two, three, four—”

The downbeat hit like a detonation.

Marlene's bass swelled like a surge of floodwater that rose to your chest before you could react. Luca snapped a snare hit that ricocheted through the room. They moved like one body: practiced, controlled, a burst of heat and precision. The melody burned through the empty venue like a match to paper. Sixteen measures, and then Rina stepped forward.

She fingered her fretboard, right where it met the guitar’s curved body. A sharp screech tore the air in half, and then her hands became a swarm of angry bees. A flurry of notes flew from her strings, one after another, until at last a trio of power chords marked the end of her sixteen-measure reign.

Marlene took a solo of her own, and then Luca’s drums became a machine gun. Each cymbal a car crash, each tom-tom a bullet. The trio played the melody one more time, went into the coda—and stopped dead on the same note, as if someone had flipped the band off switch.

The room was still in the silence they left behind.

Marlene stood still, eyes closed. Her breath came fast and shallow, her fingers still curled around the neck of her bass.

Damn. That was tight. No drift, no lag. Rina hit her cue like a sniper and Luca was an animal.

She let the silence embrace her. The last note still pulsed in her chest, vibrating somewhere behind her ribs.

This is it. The first show of the biggest tour we’ve ever done. Twenty-three cities. A producer. Real goddamn gear. And we don’t suck anymore.

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

We sound dangerous.

She opened her eyes and looked out toward the empty room, letting out a long, slow breath. In an hour the place would swell with screaming fans. “That’ll do,” she said, putting her bass on its stand and lighting a cigarette. “Dinner in the green room?”

____

Marlene bit into a slice of pepperoni pizza. A rivulet of orange grease ran down her forearm and came to rest in the crook of her elbow. She walked over to a window and eyed the crowd lined up outside and said, “Poor bastards. They have no idea what we’re going to do to them tonight.”

“This six pack is warm,” Luca said. “And there’s only five.”

“Dammit, Craig,” said Marlene. She grabbed a second slice of pizza and a handful of pretzels. 

“You eat like a raccoon,” Luca said. “We get actual food this go-round, Mar. You needn’t go feral.”

Luca stuffed a banana into his stick bag. “I thought we were getting LaCroix. Rina, didn’t you tell them LaCorix?” He walked over to the veggie platter. “Are baby carrots supposed to be wrinkly? And grey?”

Rina looked up from where she sat on the floor. “Oh I didn’t realize you went to culinary school, chef. Just eat your grey carrot, drink your off-brand water, and have some pizza.”

“Marlene ate it all.”

Rina looked up at Marlene. “Of course you did.”

Marlene shrugged. She took a beer from the table, opened it, and downed half in one go. “Fuck, that’s warm.”

“I told you,” Luca said.

Rina pulled a sheet of paper from her bag. “Let’s go over the set list. Take a Number, Throat Full of Bees, Flicker / Choke, Holy Teeth, Stay Ugly, Machete Halo, Spitshine, and lastly Broken Crown. Luca, I will look at you right at the false ending in Flicker. We count two measures together and then resume.

“Got it,” Luca said, now on his sixth wrinkly carrot.

Rina said, “Hey Mar, Marlene, don’t rush Machete. I know you like it, but it’s fast enough as it is. Just listen to Luca. Also, I want to play it Drop D.”

Marlene opened another beer, this one slightly colder. “You serious?”

“It hits harder, and I want to ride the low string on the turnaround.”

Marlene paused, thinking. “Shit. I’ll have to tune the Rick down. It’s a pain in the ass in the middle of a show.”

“You’ll survive.”

“You just like to make things difficult, Rina.” 

Marlene turned to where her bass rested on a couch. “I know hates when mean old Rina makes me mess with you tension.” She patted the tuning pegs with her hand. “Don’t worry, baby. It’s just one song. Mommy’ll fix you after.”

Rina opened her mouth to say something just as there was a sharp rap on the door and Freckles entered. “Guys, it’s time.”

Marlene snapped up, finished her beer. Wiped pizza grease on her pant leg, picked up her bass and said, “Rock and roll, Freckles. Put the rest of the beers on the drum riser, stage right.”

—--

They gathered backstage. Marlene’s bass was at her hips, a silver belt around her waist. Tonight her long, brassy hair was up in a topknot and she wore a T-Shirt that read, “Who the Fuck is Marlene Vega?” She was lightly jogging in place. Luca twirled a stick while Rina did her quiet breathing. Out in the house, the crowd was restless. 

Don’t fuck this up, Mar. We’ve worked so hard.

The lights went down. The smoke machines kicked on. The crowd howled in anticipation. “Go,” Freckles said.

Marlene walked out first, then Luca. Five hundred voices screamed. Luca raised a fist. Front-row hands reached. Rina approached her mic, stage lights striking her full in the face. She shouted, “Ready, Boston?”

Screams.

Rina counted off. “One. Two….” As she said “Three,” Marlene was in the air, her knees tucked under her chin. On “Four,” her boots struck the stage, and the opening riff of “Take A Number” hit the crowd like a board. Four measures in, and Marlene already felt the warmth that filled her chest whenever she played. The stressors of the day – wrinkly carrots, warm beer, narrow back alleys, early-morning calls for a radio interview disappeared, and she was pounding on her bass. For five hundred people who knew every lyric she had ever written.

Like a goddess.

At the chorus, Rina moved to center stage for her solo. Marlene met her and they stood back-to-back, grinning like wolves. Marlene turned and gave Rina a look that said, “You nailed it” as she strutted back to her mic.

Luca grinned as they hit the double-time bridge. He was already sweating when his red Chuck Taylors found the double bass pedals. He and Marlene locked in the bass and drums, which are the spine of any rock band, that night. She smacked 16th notes out of the Rick to match his feet with absolute precision.

Rina caught his eye and they started the coda. Marlene put one boot on a monitor and a fan lunged for it. They hit the last chord and left it for dead. Riotous applause washed over them, and it soaked Marlene’s whole being. “Well goddamn, Boston. You showed up.”

Cheers.

Between Stay Ugly and Machete Halo, Rina adjusted the strap on her Melody Maker and crouched by her pedal board.

“We switching?” Marlene asked, already tuning down.

“Yeah. You good?”

“Yes, yes, I already said I’d do it, damn,” Marlene said, twisting the tuning peg with a flick. The crowd noise was a blur—restless, ready.

Rina turned to Luca. “Ready– are you kidding me?”

“What?” he shouted, pushing the rest of the banana into his mouth. He wiped his hands on his jeans and gave the floor tom a test roll. “All good.”

“All right,” Marlene said into the mic. “This one’s for when talking nicely stops working.”

Rina struck the first chord of "Machete Halo," and the whole room seemed to surge forward.

Right before Spitshine, Marlene wiped her brow with her forearm. Before her, the sweaty crowd cheered and screamed for more. Let’s give them a treat, she thought. Something to remember. She turned to Luca. “Violet” she shouted. 

Luca took a sip from the water bottle at his feet. Here we go with the fucking clown show, he thought. This was fun when she first did it. Now it's a stunt. Theatrics. It’s silly and embarrassing. He gave her a thumbs up. “Whatever,” he said under his breath.

Marlene walked over to Rina and leaned in close to her ear. “Violet.” Rina nodded in acknowledgement. Marlene got back to her mic and said, “Here we go.” She started the intro to Violet Days and the crowd heaved like a living thing. Marlene purred through the verses and climbed off the stage, leaving the crowd to sing the chorus:

You moved like a secret,

Something I shouldn’t name.

Lipstick on your collar,

And heat I couldn’t blame..

A fan in a baby doll dress and a knit beanie gave Marlene a look that could burn down a house. Rina and Luca held the beat. Marlene slithered to the crowd as security helped the fan up front. They found each other in the noise. “Hi,” said the nameless fan, her cheeks flush, straw–colored hair plastered to her sweaty face.

Their mouths met like an answer.

The taking of the sacrament.

It wasn’t a kiss so much as a claim—the kind that made everyone watching forget to cheer.

For one suspended second, it was just them. Sweat, heat, breath.

Then Marlene let her go, leapt back onto the stage, and spit the final lyric like she never needed oxygen again.

The last notes reverberated. Luca got up from behind his drums and joined Marlene and Rina at the edge of the stage. They joined hands, slick with sweat, arms raised high, and bowed in unison.

Marlene let go first. She slipped the strap off her shoulder, unhooked the bass, and hurled it into the crowd.

There was a blur of chrome and wood, and then the Rick disappeared into a frenzied, grasping sea of arms and hands.

Luca turned to her, stunned. “Why did you do that?”

Marlene pulled a cigarette from her pocket and lit it as she walked off stage.

“Because I can afford another one.”