He’s supposed to be on stage in fifteen minutes but instead of tuning up in the dressing room my younger brother Aaron is at the back of the club with me, stretching his scrawny self across the soundboard and looking at the audience through a pair of small binoculars, like a pirate sizing up a treasure ship. His long dirty blond hair swirls around dozens of volume and tone control knobs.

“There’s a million girls out there,” he says, stamping his feet with excitement. “It’s not just a bunch of punk guys. This is the best night of the tour so far. Don’t you think, Kevin?”

I’m standing with my back to him a few feet away. I’ve got my flashlight out to check settings on the effects rack, ignoring him as much as I possibly can. I’m always nervous just before show time. I wonder if missed making some connection in the sea of cables and amplifiers and effects that link the soundboard to the stage and I worry if Aaron will break a guitar string or get a sore throat or something when he starts playing. But what bothers me the most is the way Aaron cheerfully picks over the crowd each night to decide which girl or girls he’s going to invite back stage afterward. He does it without self-consciousness or doubt: it never occurs to him that whoever he chooses might not be interested. He’s the front man of the band, after all, the singer/songwriter, the infant star. She’s always interested. The burning knot that has gripped my stomach since the start of our tour three weeks ago tightens its grip and a drop of acid sweat falls off the end of my nose.

I make my own survey of the crowd much earlier in the night, usually just after the doors open. That’s why I’ve got the binoculars. I’m never sure exactly what I’m looking for. Aaron’s audiences are mostly noisy adolescent punks in grimy hooded sweaters and ragged-cuffed jeans that scrape the floor, surly kids that I wouldn’t spend time around if I didn’t have to. Lately he’s been attracting an older audience, college-age, and more and more women, but I can’t do anything more than spy at them from behind the board. I’m two years older than Aaron but I’ve never possessed his confidence. Women leave me stuttering and gape-mouthed, unsure of what to say though it usually doesn’t matter because they really want to talk to him. Aaron’s boldness always amazes and enrages me.

“I think I see a girl for you, Kevin,” Aaron says. “Right up near the edge of the stage. She’s not a punk or anything. I mean, she’s wearing a skirt. She’s totally your type. You should go talk to her.” I’m trying to concentrate on the effects rack but sweat is pouring down my spine. The idea of approaching someone that Aaron has picked out for me is paralyzing.

“C’mon Kevin, check her out. She’s cute but not like regular cute. Maybe she’s a journalist or something. She’s your type, Kevin. She really is. I can tell. Take a look.”

Aaron doesn’t like to be ignored. It’s one of the few things that can disturb his incessant cheery confidence. He plucks at my tee shirt and whines: “Kevvuuuun! C’mon!”

I spin around to face him, ready to club him senseless with my flashlight. “What?” I said. “For fuck’s sake go get ready. We’re going to get shit if you’re not playing on time.”

“But just look at her for a second.”

“No!” I ask myself why there can’t be one place in this world that is my own. Aaron owns the stage and the audience, he owns the sound in the air. Why does he have to take over my sound board as well, the one tiny place in the club where I feel even vaguely comfortable?

“Just for a second. Then I’ll go, I promise. I just want to know if you think she’s a journalist or what. Like from Spin magazine. Don’t you think we should know that before the show?”

He wrinkles his forehead like a wounded puppy. Aaron has long spindly arms and narrow shoulders and wears old surfing tee shirts and frayed jeans. It’s the look of an orphan or homeless waif, part of his charm both onstage and off, a costume that has successfully melted the hearts of parents, teachers, truant officers, and all the females he has met in his life so far. There’s no point in me trying to resist either, I know from long experience. If charm and outright flirtation don’t work, Aaron can also be demanding, insistent and abrasive. But they do work, they always work. I take the binoculars from his hand, put them to my eyes, make a quick look toward the stage, and set them down again.

“Oh yeah,” I say, “journalist. I think she was at last night’s show too.” I wave my flashlight at Aaron’s head again, threatening concussion. “Now will you go back?”

“Do you like her? You barely looked.”

I wonder what it would be like to really smash his head open, the blood and brains mingling with stringy unwashed hair, his watery blue eyes pale and vacant. “Yeah,” I say, making another cursory glance at the stage. “She’s cute. Now get out of here.”

“You should go up there, man, go talk to her. Get us some good publicity. You go up there and I’ll go get ready to play.”

“Right. With ten minutes to go.”

“Yeah. Now’s the perfect time. She’s all excited about the show. She’s open. And she’s totally your type, Kevin, I can tell. Tell me you’ll do it. Tell me you’ll do it and I’ll go get ready.”

“Fuck you.”

“Now’s the perfect time. Talk to her now and it’ll be easier to talk to her later. Puhleeze.”

“Okay,” I say, “If there’s time. Now GET GOING.”

Aaron makes a little war dance around me, his bare feet slapping on the sticky tile. Aaron never wears shoes, even in grimy punk clubs like this one where there might be broken glass on the floor. He grabs my shoulders playfully and then launches himself into the semi-darkness of the club. I watch him work his way up to the dressing room, stopping on the way to talk to his young fans, putting his hands on their shaggy heads.

I sip from a pint carton of milk that I keep under the sound board to cool the burning in my stomach, then take the binoculars back up to look into the crowd. I know exactly who Aaron was looking at: a tallish young woman, more my age than his, in a bright red skirt and shiny black top, standing at the far left edge of the stage. Brown hair with eggplant highlights cut in a bob with ends that curl to her cheeks. A pale serious face livened with pink lipstick and sparkly eye shadow. A soft chin.

I had been watching her since before the opening band, before Aaron even knew she existed. What caught my attention was that she looked almost exactly like a cartoon girl on the cover of one of my favorite albums, a record from the 70s by an English ska band called the Twin Tones. Aaron and I listened to the Twin Tones a lot when we were growing up. I’d put the record on the stereo in the living room and watch him, giddy with pleasure, bounce around the furniture like a human pogo stick, driving himself over the fast-moving upbeat music. I’d play it over and over again just to watch him fly around the room with such happiness.

The girl on the cover had always intrigued me. She was poise, style and fun personified, a perfect cartoon girl, never lonely or angry, never suspicious or reserved. I wondered what her perfect cartoon guy would be like. Someone sharp and smart and witty and a good dancer. A romantic: maybe a musician. When Aaron was still a kid, bouncing on the furniture and not on a stage, I could still wonder if it could be me.

Maybe the Twin Tone girl at the edge of the stage really is a journalist, a thought that lifts my spirits slightly. If she is on assignment it means that she isn’t necessarily one of Aaron’s fans. She’s not already in love with him, hasn’t been desperately flipping through the fanzines for photos or scouring record stores for all the colored vinyl versions of his single. Maybe, just maybe, Aaron isn’t what she needs.

I look at my watch. Five minutes. She’s open, Aaron had said. He would know.

Before I can let myself think about it anymore I tuck my flashlight into the leather case on my belt and jump off of the sound platform, pushing my way through the crowd toward the edge of the stage. They remind me of Aaron, of course. Their faces are lost but hopeful like his, and they share Aaron’s desperate need for attention. It’s all very familiar and at the same time alienating: I know that they are here for Aaron, his fire and his sound. He is what they need. As familiar as these faces are, these hundreds of imprints of Aaron, it has nothing to do with me.

The thick pack of young punks at the near side of the stage push themselves aside to let me through. They know that this older guy in black jeans and tee shirt with a flashlight on his belt is the sound man and there’s not going to be any music or slam dancing until I’m done messing around. I climb up on the stage, trying to look nimble and athletic, and cross purposefully and confidently to the guitar effects rack at the back, pretending to adjust the tone and reverb settings, even though I know I set them right hours ago. Then, thinking of the cocky, confident way that Aaron moves on stage, I walk right up to the center microphone. This draws the eyes of nearly everyone in the room, including Twin Tone girl. My knees buckle and quiver but I manage to remind myself that I don’t have to sing or play guitar or do anything like that but just pretend to adjust Aaron’s microphone stand.

I can see her very clearly. She’s dressed so much like the cartoon girl that I realize it must be a costume of sorts, a tribute. Again channeling Aaron I look right at her and give her my best smile, the broadest, most welcoming, most Aaron-like smile that I can summon. Incredibly, she smiles back with a happy and good natured grin and I do a little handstand in my mind. Boldness, confidence, openness is what it takes. Aaron tells me this all the time. Throw yourself out there, he says. You don’t have to be a rock star or a guitar god. Just be your self.

Still looking at her, smiling so hard that it’s beginning to hurt, I reach up and pull the lapels on my own shirt. “Twin Tones!” I shout, desperately willing my voice to her over the general noise. “Nice!”

To my complete and total surprise she throws her hands in the air and does a little pirouette (such as she can with the crowd pushed close around her) so that I can admire the whole outfit, and then strikes the exact pose of the girl on the album cover. A big tingle goes up my spine. What now? Aaron at this point would make some kind of display of his own: mugging, dancing, something goofy and comic. All I can do is look at my watch, which shows less than one minute until show time. There’s not time to figure out what to say or do next because I’ve got to run back and pull the lights. I show my large painful smile to the Twin Tone girl one more time and then jump off the stage and run back to the board. I take a last big gulp of milk and get myself into position.

A few kids at the front have started slapping their hands on the stage, yelling obscenities, shoving each other with mock aggression. Fifteen seconds. I pick up my binoculars for one last look. Twin Tone girl is standing her ground in the middle of the pushing crowd but looking around toward the back of the club, seeming to study, as Aaron and I do every night, each expectant face. Is she looking for praise and admiration, as he does, or for sympathy and comfort, as I have for eighteen years?

It’s thirty seconds past curtain time. My hand rests on the house light faders but I keep them up, watching as her eyes move through the club. Will she find me, finally, hidden behind my cables and effects? And if she does, what more can I do? What signal can I give her? What message?

A minute late now, unprecedented. All summer I have hectored and nagged Aaron and his band mates about professionalism: being on time, playing in tune, respecting the audience. Now I hang on to the house lights in hopes that this woman will just look at me once more.

A cheer goes up, loud sloppy shouting from all over the room. Aaron and his band—Brodie Wilson on bass and Knock Andrews on drums—didn’t wait for their cue but walked out on stage anyway. Aaron, wearing his guitar slung low like a cocky gunfighter, skips to the edge of the stage and throws his arms open to the room, smiling broadly while everyone claps and cheers. I fumble for my carton of milk and gulp from it

“Let’s leave the lights on for a sec, okay Kevin?” Aaron says into his mike. Even after a summer of loud singing and pack-a-day smoking, his voice is youthful and pure. “I just want to look at everybody.”

It’s five minutes after the hour and nobody has played a note but the club is filled with cheers and applause as if someone is panning a TV camera around the room. Twin Tone girl, like everyone else in the room, stares at Aaron in open admiration, mirroring his brilliant beaming expression as best she can. She has no reserve, no doubt, no distance in her face. Like everyone else in the world, it seems to me, she is ready to accept him fully, to give him everything.

Aaron works the edge of the stage, giving playful head butts and hand slaps to the fans but when he gets to the Twin Tone girl he leans over for a kiss. Cheek or lips I can’t quite see but she reaches out and tugs on his tee shirt. The knot in my stomach tightens again, somehow tangling my testicles along with it.

As he walks back toward center stage, Aaron throws out a grin with a special sneering curl on the bottom of his lip, a grin that I know is meant for me back behind the sound board, a special communication between brothers. The grin has many elements: gloating over having already kissed the pretty girl at the edge of the stage, self-satisfaction over the cheering reception he has received without playing a note, and true amusement over having stumped me by walking the band out onto the stage before I was ready. I see it all and a lot more.

With a few steps to go before he is back at his microphone, Knock and Brodie exchange significant looks and I know they are ready to jump into the opening song. My fingers move across the sound board and touch each slider that will send Aaron’s voice and guitar into the room. Dozens of sweating fans push and swarm at the edge of the stage, ready for him. Aaron gains his mike and rolls his head a little to sweep back his hair, his body loose and open. He is ready. He has been ready his whole life. I push the sliders up and let the sound, Aaron’s huge sound, Aaron’s huge self, roll into the club.

Aaron’s arm is slung around my shoulders, a pretty unpleasant experience because he’s sweaty and damp from nearly an hour of playing. He reeks of cigarette and pot smoke and generally bad hygiene. Usually I don’t see him after a show until the next day, but tonight he’s back at the sound board only a few minutes after the encore, his face full of mischievous energy.

“Is she looking?” He has to yell in my ear because we are both always a little deaf after his shows.

“No,” I say. I’m tired and my ears are ringing and my stomach knot has refused to untie itself even though the show is over, but there is nothing to do but go along with Aaron, to play my part.

He picks up my clipboard and looks at it, wrinkling his brow like he is considering something of the utmost seriousness. His hair falls limply around his face “How about now?”

I lean over the clipboard too, which lets me get a good look toward the center of the club where the Twin Tone girl is now standing. I can see her pale oval face clearly, even that she is chewing her lower lip. Dozens of sweaty young fans push around her heading for the door, but she stands quite still, nervously chewing, looking right at the sound booth where Aaron and I are standing.

“Yes,” I say, “now she’s definitely looking.” My ears are ringing loudly. I’m hot and tired and there’s at least an hour’s work ahead of me tearing down the sound system and packing it away, but Aaron has a game he wants to play and I have to play it. He swings around to face me and throws his hands in the air, gesturing in a weird pantomime of concern and confusion. “Okay, now tell me something serious. Act real stern like Dad used to do.”

I poke my finger in his chest. “You’re a shitty guitar player and you know it,” I push my jaw out in a fair imitation of our Dad’s indignant, domineering manner. The tip of my pointing finger finds a bony hollow in his chest. I push harder and let my anger grow on its own. “You better shape up or I’m fucking kicking you out of the band.”

It’s bullshit of course, and we both know it. What I really want to say is why don’t you drop dead so I can have my own life. I don’t need your help with anything, not with attracting girls with eggplant hair or anything else. I dig my finger in a little deeper until Aaron says “OW!” and jumps back.

“Don’t overdo it Kevin,” he rubs his chest and looks wounded. “She’ll think you’re a bully or something.”

She’s moving, pushing her way through the punks and heading toward us. I’m not sure what to think at this point. The cartoon girl has jumped off of the album cover, but it’s Aaron who brought

I poke my finger in his chest. “You’re a shitty guitar player and you know it,” I push my jaw out in a fair imitation of our Dad’s indignant, domineering manner. The tip of my pointing finger finds a bony hollow in his chest. I push harder and let my anger grow on its own. “You better shape up or I’m fucking kicking you out of the band.”

Aaron smiles his smile, his epic, crowing smile that everyone who knows him thinks will some day cover a million record albums. It starts in his eyes and then pushes out to fill his whole face, even his body, with real joy.

“Okay,” he says, kicking his feet, unable to contain his happiness. “It’s up to you now. Let’s make up quick, show her what a nice guy you are. Then send me back to the dressing room.”

I slap his back and ruffle his hair, television sitcom gestures of friendship and reconciliation. Then I point toward the dressing room door at the back of the house and watch him with an absurdly fond expression on my face as he skips off, trying to contain his own total glee.

She’s closer now, walking with a little bit of uncertainty but still coming. There was nothing I could do but play my part. The hot noisy clubs are Aaron’s world and he makes the rules. He writes the songs and sings them, he plays the guitar and stands in the center of stage and gives the hungry audience what they need. I work the sound board, pack the instruments, and try to find something in it all for myself, but at best there are small portions of reflected applause, stray bits of love and acceptance. It’s the same for the guys in his band, I realize. Aaron understood the social economics of garage rock very well. He knows that he glows brightest when everything works well around him: the sound crisp, the bass and drum playing solid and accurate, so he pays us what he can, shares as much light as would stick to us.

His light.

She’s coming closer, the twin tone girl, small hips swiveling under a tiny waist. Her starched shirt is now crumpled and sweaty from the show but she is still that pirouetting girl from the edge of the stage, from my desperate imagination. She smiles, bobs her head and throws her hands in the air like before, clicking her fingers like castanets, celebrating our earlier encounter. She doesn’t really know who I am yet but I’m sure that she knows one thing—that through me she can get to him. My heart withers and a stale metallic taste comes into my mouth. It was up to me, Aaron had said. In a moment she would be close enough to talk to, the round white face and warm interesting eyes. Was I the manager? Could I take her to meet the band? Did we all want to go to the old cowboy bar with the great jukebox? She and I would talk enthusiastically. Because of the noise still in the room (and my partial hearing loss from two years of doing sound for Aaron) we would have to draw close, speak into each other ears. Maybe I would put my hand on her shoulder to steady myself. Her hair, the gentle ends of the Twin Tone bob, might brush my face, stick a little bit to my lips. Her smell, probably soap and cigarettes, would surround me and fill me. We would be close, touching and sharing, but knowing all the time that it was for Aaron, that we were on stage and he was the audience cheering us on. No matter what happened, it would all be for him.

§ § §

Vince Donovan is a back country ski guide in Bear Valley, California. In summer he builds kitchen cabinets in the bay area and dreams of the silky powder..

This piece was first published in Special Edition INK POT - 2004, a literary journal.