There’s a phrase in the writing world: Kill Your Darlings. In essence, it means to have the courage to get rid of unnecessary scenes, characters, or words in a story even if those bits have become dear to you. Maybe there’s been a lot of work in the crafting, maybe some turn of phrase or description feels so clever it couldn’t possibly be dumped, etc. etc. Naturally this is where my ego gets all tangled up in blues. Currently, I’m revisiting the first book I wrote that I sent out to agents, got a few interested responses but ultimately no bites. Yet now I’m told that there is an interest in stories written about that historical time known as the nineties and so I’ve been encouraged to resurrect this manuscript and resubmit it. So this last week I spent some time re-reading and looking for darlings to kill.

One that I surgically removed (alright, maybe just ripped out at the roots) is one I had a lot of fun writing back in the day of writing. And because my ego is not too far from the surface of my skin, I’m just dropping it right here. It’s just a scene, taken out of some context, but still a snapshot of a character in a novel written by me. A young music journalist in the nineties struggling…of course. So thank you for indulging me, if in fact you choose to.

Slap. Slap. Slap. 

It took every fiber of my being to keep the smile frozen on my face while I watched Pip Helix, bassist for Crown of Thorns, slap his hand against his thigh to the beat of Cameo’s “Word Up!” His head was moving from side to side in a kind of Stevie Wonder–roll, while he stared at me and sang, “We don’t have the time for psychological romance. No romance, no romance, no romance for me, mamma.” And then he flapped his hand against an imaginary bass and contorted his body on the barstool, while nodding at me and miming a crazy rock face. He seemed to be enjoying himself. I was in a great amount of pain.

I tried to look away, but he kept hitting me on the knee during the downbeat, so I just stared at him trying to keep a neutral expression not unlike someone pretending to understand what a baby’s trying to convey. Mostly I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me.

But I kept smiling until my cheeks hurt, while scribbling, “Help me” in my reporter’s notebook. I thought about flashing it toward the bartender so she could call someone. Pip no doubt thought I was taking notes on his air-bass moves. Finally, the song ended with him giving one final bass slap against his stomach, then shouting “UP” loudly enough that anyone walking by on 23^rd street would have heard him. 

“Right on,” I said lamely, my teeth clenching as I signaled for more drinks. 

“That song fuckin’ rocks,” Pip said. He reached for the glass of water near his elbow—the one I’d been sure would be shattered during his air-bass flailing—and guzzled. I was glad he was hydrating since before Cameo had come into our lives he’d been describing how his recent stay in the hospital for exhaustion had been the best thing to ever happen to him.

“I’m a new man,” he’d said enthusiastically. “I found out that alcohol is a serious dehydrator, dude, and that your body is made up of sixty percent water, but as you get older you lose it. Like you could seriously dry up and blow away like one of those Western movie weedy things. I mean, I. Never. Drank. Water. Ever.” He enunciated these words like they were little bombs and his eyes got wider as he dropped each one. “Like all I ever put in my mouth was alcohol. I mean, I guess ice cubes melt and become water and stuff. But still. I was dryin’ up. But now I’m fillin’ up.” 

I waited for him to finish gulping his water and asked, “So, what kind of music did you listen to growing up?” 

Pip looked at me, as a light shut off behind his brown eyes, and a mini dreadlock with a turquoise bead shook down the middle of his face. I’d remembered his hair as standard-issue medium-length rock hair, but now he seemed to be cultivating a whole kind of Rasta situation and because he was a standard-issue medium-intelligent white guy, it was a bad look on a lot of levels.

Pip shook the appropriation interruption out of his eyes, chuckled and said, “Dude, you didn’t come here to talk about my childhood.” He sounded kind of defensive. And, while yes, in fact I had come to talk about his childhood at least a little, I did remember that the press had had a field day digging into the Crown of Thorns’ personal lives back in the day—who they were fighting with, fucking with, and whatnot. So I shouldn’t have been all that surprised that a question referencing anything other than his new musical creation might cause him some amount of snarl. I decided to go down a safer road.

“Well, you know, I’d love to hear about your early influences, and how they might have impacted your new music.” 

“Let me tell you about this album,” he started, ignoring the “early influences” bit. It’s a dozen songs of kick-ass grooves. I mean, here’s what makes it so fuk’n different: every song is just bass. How many albums can you say that about?” 

He stared at me. This was apparently a real question. I started to think. I was about to say maybe Primus? But Pip jumped in with, “Exactly, none.” 

“So then that’s cool for you,” I said. I looked down at my notebook and wrote “Only bass. What?” Then I looked back up, “Do you just mix down the drums and guitar?” 

“No, dude,” Pip said, shaking his head and giving me a suspicious look. “Did you hear any drums or guitar on there? No, you didn’t because there aren’t any other instruments at all. Just me and my bass. I didn’t want to have to work with anyone but myself, and even that was hard at times.”

“Right, of course.” I hadn’t listened to the entire tape. I was doing this interview because I had to, so my regular borderline obsessive preparedness had been ignored. I’d read the press material, then listened to the first five minutes of each song figuring the bass beats were only funky lead-ins. I’d had no idea that the entire forty-five minutes was just him and his bass. This guy really had been traumatized. Why else would someone take an instrument meant to be the underpinning of a band and sail off solo unless he’d been so pummeled by his old bandmates that he’d decided any other human in the room would be a hardship? I wrote “listen to music” and “band abuse” in my notebook. 

“Huh, you could be onto something here. How’d you come up with the idea?” I asked. His brow furrowed. Silence. Deep thought. After a few too many minutes passed and nothing seemed to be coming, I added, “I mean, is there a band whose bass player you wished had been more, er, bass-centric?” I wanted to stop saying the word “bass.”

“Man, you really want to talk about the past,” Pip snapped. Then, finally, he took a deep breath and said slowly like someone explaining to a child how to use a toothbrush, “I first got the idea during the last Crowns tour when I was up in front of all our fans. It was a massive stadium and I realized that the person standing smack in the middle of the stage was the one who people listened and paid attention to. And I was sick of not being seen. I mean, I get the whole bass player as backbone of the band shit that people talk about, but I never felt like that. A person can live without a backbone, but they always need a face and that’s what the lead dude is. You know what I’m saying? I want to be the face.”

“I totally know what you’re talking about,” I said, which was scary because I actually did. So I repeated it. “Everyone needs a face.” Then I wrote it down and added some underlines.