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Thom/Beck - Part 2	By : VinylTap Category: Singers/Bands/Musicians > Radiohead Views: 1975 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not know Beck or any of the members of Radiohead, Sonic Youth, or REM. This story is a work of fiction, and I make no money or profit from it.

Chapter List
- 17
- 18
- 19
It was nearly 11 PM when there came a knock on Jonny’s hotel room door; he knew it wasn’t Thom. He knew Thom had gone to the festival, and that he would stay out all night. The fact he didn’t bring Colin along spoke for itself, but Jonny hadn’t exactly expected that Stipey would come back without Thom in tow.
Jonny squinted against the light in the hallway, looking out past Michael’s shoulder like it was odd he’d come there alone, despite everything still humbled by his presence even now.
“Where’s Thom?” he asked, and regretted it straight away: he didn’t want it spelled out for him; he should be happy for Thom. Michael grinned amicably as Jonny let him into the room, “Catching up with a friend,” he said, like in a way, it pained him, too, and he’d come to see Jon because misery loved company.
Hand still on the doorknob, Jonny watched as Michael helped himself in, uncertain why he was doing so but not about to protest: the awareness he was the great Michael Stipe still hadn’t really worn off, even if it felt very often like he was stealing Thom from Jonny with his eyes.
Michael didn’t tell him how unbelievable a show he had missed, because that would be adding insult to injury, and Jonny wouldn’t know what to make of it, because he thought fondly of Beck.
As it were, Jonny didn’t ask. His eyes followed Michael around the room as he proceeded toward the bed and sat himself on its edge, leaning forth to turn on the telly, not really finding the right button.
“Here,” Jonny said, he proceeded to sit at his side and turn it on for him, he’d had difficulty with it, too, earlier that day; you got used to hotel room televisions after a while. They sat watching for some time, exchanging insignificant words, Michael not saying why he’d come and Jon not really asking. He observed him out the corner of his eye, trying best he could to look inconspicuous, to convince himself that Michael Stipe was really human.
That there were imperfections in his skin, that he was far older than himself, that he was just wearing regular clothes that regular people wore, and had a watch tan under his watch.
Were they sat there together because they both were thinking of Thom?
Stipey eyed Jon subtly as he could from where he was sat, aware of what he and Thom had done together, too gentle and sensitive to ask outright, not wishing to intrude— but they both wanted the same thing, didn’t they— and both couldn’t really have it.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Jon’s voice came quiet, eyes still on the telly, “he wants to fuck you very badly.”
Michael gazed back with surprise, like the word carried shock value that didn’t exactly belong; he didn’t say I wasn’t going to ask. He didn’t say much of anything, and it occurred to Jonny he must already have known. “You ought to tell him, yourself,” Jonny said, “he’s bloody terrified.”
Michael must have known that bit, too.
--
There were times Thom was reminded exactly why he hated touring, and they were times just after Stipey had departed to do something without Thom— like he’d been carrying whatever enchantment had Thom fooled into thinking he’d actually enjoyed himself. Thom thought he didn’t mind touring all over America, all over Europe, all over Japan.
Jonny liked seeing Thom in better spirits, the real life strain of the tour had again raised the band’s awareness that Stipey was really just a human being. He and Colin had been at the boardwalk in Tel Aviv, Israel, the sunlight streaming clear on the sparkling water and lounge chairs dotted along the sand. You didn’t really get sunny days like this very often back home, they worried their English pallor would rapidly burn. Colin had stayed to guard their things while Jonny proceeded to the snack bar for ice cream, sand hot beneath his bare feet, sound of the waves, men in bathing suits playing beach tennis with paddle racquets.
The sound of beach showers nearby where children hopped under the stream, their parents tiredly collecting their sand buckets and inflatable toys, urging them to hurry up and be done with it. Lots of people at the snack bar, kids with wet hair standing on tiptoe to see, pointing inside to indicate what they wanted. Jonny attempted to get in line but there wasn’t much of a line to get into, he stood helplessly behind the large crowd of people and waited.
He’d noticed at least three people cutting in front of him, and wondered if it was all right to say something, he tried to remember whatever words in Hebrew the band had been taught for basic interaction here, but it was no use; he tried quietly in English, excuse me, but he really was saying it mostly to himself; he ended up waiting until he was finally at the front. He started explaining what he wanted to get when some girl actually shoved him aside and got in front of him, already mid-question about whether she could buy just one cigarette instead of a whole pack, also mid-argument with her friend at the same time.
Jonny stared astonished, lips parted, eyes wide. He emitted a sort of helpless squeak, and the girl didn’t really pay attention until after she’d been most of the way through paying. Cigarette dangling between her lips. She turned partway toward him, aware of him for the first time, and laughed. She said something in Hebrew which he didn’t understand, and he shook his head, murmuring in English that he was sorry, because he was so stunned that she wasn’t.
“Oh,” she said in a moment of realization, speaking in English now— “you speak English.” She smiled toothily, long hair glittering in the sun, and asked if he had a lighter.
“I don’t smoke,” Jonny murmured, and by now there were three other people cutting ahead of him in the line that there wasn’t.
“Why you are letting them get ahead of you like that,” she asked badly and with a strong Hebrew accent, and now she pushed the three others aside, hand on the counter, other hand pointing, cigarette still between her lips. She was gesturing with her hands, pointing at Jonny in a way that made him want the earth to swallow him whole, and argued loudly with everyone about how it was his turn, like she hadn’t cut him off exactly the same way.
“Here,” she said kindly, pulling him by the wrist, “Tell me what do you want and I will tell to them.”
“I—it’s quite all right, I really don’t…”
But she wouldn’t let him. She made him tell her how he wanted two ice cream bars and two sodas, and she took his money and figured out which bills and coins to use, then gave him back the change. Jonny found himself stupidly speechless, stood awkwardly on the white sand, the packages wet in his hands with condensation. He thanked her without thinking about it, still somehow upset by the whole experience and unprepared to handle being treated so impolitely.
She started asking him after that if he was from the States, if he was Jewish, how come he came; he didn’t know how to tell her he was actually the guitarist for a band that was touring with the great REM. She started asking a bunch of other stuff after that, and it hadn’t occurred to him that it was because he had purchased two of everything, and she was trying to figure out if he was single. She asked him for his number when it became apparent he was single, and it hadn’t dawned on him until she was writing her number on the back of his hand that she was asking him out.
He flushed when the realization set in; girls never asked him out directly. Colin had been the cool one, and he was the one who may have had an image on stage, but was socially awkward face-to-face with people. He squinted while watching her and her friend depart, carrying their beach bags, their sundresses batting lightly in the breeze; her writing was messy on the back of his hand, digits in a long stream without any breaks, and then, in English, Sharona.

(On to Chapter 19)
- 17
- 18
- 19
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Thom/Beck - Part 2