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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
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The small apartment lay in stillness; Leigh was blinking sleep from her eyes, twisted in her chair, one hand on the backrest. Beck on his knees with the files in hand, making no effort to conceal the incriminating evidence.
He felt so profoundly protected and loved, it seemed almost irrelevant that someone else failed to recognize Leigh’s talent— or, for that matter, his own.
For Beck, there was this back and forth between losing his courage and not. Between the significance of feedback from others and the fundamental awareness that this was what he’d wanted to do.
He had tremendous skill on his side, he wasn’t working alone. He really did love Leigh for her style. Whether or not talent went recognized did not change the fact that it had been there.
He wanted to tell her, you don’t need to work under anyone, but that wasn't how it went in the professional world; you needed references, letters of recommendation, you needed mentions on your resume, regardless of how daft and superficial you liked thinking that was.
Either way, she’d clearly understood he’d gone through her files, and that he’d found images he wasn’t meant to see because they sucked. She wasn’t pissed; she’d imagined in the past he might find them, it wasn’t some dark, concealed secret.
“I want to use this,” he spoke at last, it came innocent and simple, he wondered if she was enough awake to understand.
She nodded and said, “Okay,” because she was too disoriented to think much beyond that.
She finally turned back around in her chair and began organizing some of the papers that fell out of their stacks, then gave that up and rose to her feet, and walked toward Beck.
“You all right?” she asked, settling down at his side and gently taking the file organizer. He watched her hands move with mindful care through the tabs, putting things back in their place; somehow, this was a matter of personal pride to her, even if no one but she was meant ever to look.
She brushed back her hair and proceeded carefully to wind the string around the fastens, and Beck replied, “Yeah,” even though you couldn’t really be all right when you were grieving. You went back and forth between being able to function and not, between the whole thing seeming strange and surreal and like it really did happen.
“C’mere,” he said, and he leaned over toward her, sliding his arms round her back and drawing her close to him, into his lap. He was still warm from sleep, Leigh leaned her head against his chest, it was much more comfortable than falling asleep at the kitchen table.
There was a profound ache inside her, the awareness of having been fired, and having lost the structure in her life. It was tremendously daunting, the danger of succumbing to the limbo of in-between. Ever since she found out, her mind had been racing through possible remedies, feebly attempting to construct plans B and C, so she would have something to believe, and something to follow from there.
There was no motivation of pride, because she’d been made to feel so profoundly she had little talent; there only was the motivation of personal passion.
She was reluctant to tell Beck, because it seemed self-serving in the face of what he’d endured, and he felt intrusive to bring up something so delicate, that would sound insulting had he brought it up in her stead.
“You ought to know I, ah, I lost my job— but— I’m figuring out other plans, so, I’m just letting you know, so you know what’s going on with me.”
He gazed absently around the small apartment, the television and couch, the book shelves, all the stuff that had lain on the coffee table for weeks; “Tell me how I can help you,” he said, “like if you need anything, if there’s something I can do—”
He knew what she really wanted was her old job back. He knew how humbling this was to her, that saying anything of it was dangerous ground.
Were she enough awake, she might realize his response sounded too suspiciously like he'd already known.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” she said, too humiliated, too proud. She softened a bit after that, “Thanks, though, I’ll let you know—”
She didn’t like to think herself useless. She preferred to think that being fired was part of life, and not that she was incompetent and here was the proof— even though she couldn’t help feeling that that was what it was.
Either way, she had to get some kind of job, so she could pay the bills until she found a better position. She turned slowly toward him, carefully brushing his hair behind both ears.
“Tomorrow,” she said, “let’s get you a ticket to Germany— I’ll clean up around here, so you can move in your stuff—”
She was trying to change the subject; like Beck, she liked doing things her own way.
At that moment, Beck couldn’t help feeling a thrill of excitement, despite everything else going on; they were finally, finally going to live together.
“I— ah— how long would it take to actually make those outfits? That you— in the file, that is—”
She had no feelings about that. Neither self-deprecation nor enjoyment; if he wanted to use the designs, let him use them.
“I’ll look into it, when do you need it by?”
It occurred to him then how much he’d been putting things off; he wanted to say not till I start working on the video, but that by itself had a sometime in the future date, in his mind. He wanted the outfits entirely independently of that.
--
In one of Thom and Jonny’s television interviews, Thom was on about how the touring and all the flights had interfered with his hearing, and he was afraid he was going deaf.
“That is so true,” Chris said to Buckland, “You totally lose your hearing from something like that.”
He reflected introspectively on the hardship in a musician’s life, and the sacrifices one must surely make. It wasn’t a thing to be taken lightly, that was for sure, and Chris understood what he’d be getting himself into, soon as he finished his honors curriculum at uni.
Despite Thom’s grim warnings about hearing loss, though, he’d felt renewed interest in touring since their contract to tour with REM. He’d been humbled by his meeting with Stipey, which really had driven home the importance of kindness toward his fans. Mtv and the corporate media were to blame, and EMI, but not the fans who really admired you. Even if their way of showing it was tossing their bras in your face, or even— this he hated to think of— latching onto your feet at a show.
He’d been stunned into modest admiration by the gentleness Michael had shown toward him; he’d realized how much worse he’d have felt were he shown arrogance or dismissal.
He’d allowed fans to take photos, then stayed out to sign autographs long as the fans wanted him out, he thought of the packaged cooler than you that record labels wanted to make of him.
He thought he’d almost enjoyed doing shows, almost. You couldn’t really see the audience while staring into stage lights, but he’d remembered very well the shows he’d been out to see— it was easier to forget than you’d think, but, of course, the audience could see the band.
Thom and Colin were lain on the bare stage hours before a show, during the sound check, high-pitched squawks of the amps and the mic issuing from some distance off. Still light out, you could see treetops swaying against the clouded sky, Thom sang softly to himself. Colin held his hands up midair, watching the sky from in-between his fingers, inspecting minute imperfections in his skin.
There was a tentative sense of peace that descended upon them, and maybe it was because after you’d done something enough, it became enough routine you were no longer worried.
Rain down, rain down…
“After the show, let’s go out to a pub or something,” Colin said.
“Don’t think they’ve got pubs in America.”
“What have they got?”
“Right-wing capitalism!”
“Serious.”
“Don’t know. Let’s go drinking wherever you can drink here, then.”
--
Kim Gordon was stood at a third floor window of the Santa Clara Days Inn, most of her upper body bent out over the ledge, water balloon in hand.
“I need more ammo,” she informed Thurston, there were newsmen somewhere beneath, and she’d missed the last two shots.
“Move over,” Thurston said, “you suck at this.”
“Dude, screw you, get me more ammo.”
Thurston was on his way with a couple more water balloons when Kim suddenly hopped two feet back from the window, gasping, “Shit, hide—”
That time, she hit, and she gripped Thurston round the knees as she rolled onto the carpet, he dropped one balloon on himself and one on the floor in the process.
They were totally drenched. “Augh, look, now I’m all water balloony—” Thurston laughed, “what the hell—”
“That’s two hits for me, none for you.”
“You didn’t even let me try—”
“Okay, okay, you can try now. No— wait…! Not yet, you have to wait till they’re not looking.”
He didn’t wait, though. He didn’t even get any more ammo, he just trotted to the window and gripped the ledge with both hands, shouting down to the newscasts, “You are not prepared…!”
“Dude, that’s against the rules!” Kim laughed.
“Fuck the rules…! Anarchy…! Anarchy…!” It was something he shouted completely tongue-in-cheek, because this was what little kids thought revolution was. Also, shouting stuff out the window was just sort of fun.
Now Kim joined Thurston at his side and tossed another balloon down without even taking the time to aim. It landed on the sidewalk a few feet away from the newscasts, who recoiled and stared down to the ground. Kim nudged her husband, “Shut up, that’s still two hits for me and none for you.”
“…Anarchy…!”
Now there were cameras aimed up at the window, but Thurston didn’t move back.
“If you get me ammo now, I’ll throw it down while they’re filming.”
“You’ll still miss.”
“I won’t miss, hurry—”
They both darted back from the window and into the hotel room, making for the bathroom to quickly get more balloons ready. Steve Shelley, their drummer, walked in around then, he watched for several moments as Kim and Thurston ran quickly to the window.
“Can I play?” he asked. He was really quite impressed; they both had a pretty good aim, even if they both missed that time.
He squeezed in between them at the window, waving at the cameramen.
“It’s like they don’t even mind,” Kim observed, “it’s like they just want more.”
“We need, like— paint or something.”
“Have we got any Kool Aid?”
“I have chocolate milk,” Steve said.
“No,” Thurston said, “I like chocolate milk.”
“Throw down the chocolate milk…!”
“No…!”
“Throw it!”
“No…!”
But it was totally worth it when Steve tossed the chocolate milk down, and it totally got on two reporters’ shirts.
“Hide…!”
Steve and Kim tried to pull Thurston down, but he remained at the window, waving both arms, shouting “I was gonna drink that…!”
(On to Chapter 6)
Song: Paranoid Android by Radiohead (OK Computer 1997)
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- 6
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Thom/Beck - Part 2