What Have We Done (41)

Donnie should agree. He should go up to his room, have a big cry, and get some sleep. But instead, he decides he needs Rock Star Donnie tonight.

“It’s okay, Hemingway, we’ve got work to do.” He stands, signals to the bartender to charge the drinks to his room, and presses out of the place.

“Where are we going?” Reeves asks, trailing behind.

As the bellhop holds open a cab door, Donnie says, “To where it all began for Tracer’s Bullet.”

Inside the cab, Reeves looks like he still hasn’t recovered from the night before. They make their way through downtown Philadelphia traffic to Chinatown. The cabbie pulls in front of a worn opera-house-looking building. Above the arched entrance is a red neon sign that reads: THE NEW

TROCADERO. There are posters plastered on the doors with the name of a band Donnie has never heard of.

The club used to be called The Trocadero but has since changed hands. It seems like the only thing updated since the ’90s is adding the word “New” to the name. At the ticket counter, a woman with racoon makeup pushes his cash back through the slot. “No cash, cards only.”

“No cash? Times have changed,” Donnie says. “When I used to play here Phil only took cash, helped with the taxman.” He winks at the woman.

She doesn’t take the bait and ask when he played there or seem to have any idea who he is.

They take a seat at the bar. Donnie revels in the familiar pound reverberating in his chest from the bass drum, the distortion pedal on the guitar tingling his fingers and toes.

Reeves asks him a question, but it’s impossible to have a conversation amid one hundred decibels. “Let’s talk at a break in their set,” Donnie says, cupping his hand near Reeves’s ear.

They have a couple beers, look around. It’s a small crowd for a Friday night. A smattering of people at tables. The band is doing originals, which never goes over well when you’re starting out.

Donnie drinks some more, then heads to the bathroom. He smiles when he sees that the urinals still have giant photos hanging over them of women laughing hysterically as they point down.

Back at the bar, they watch the band some more. Donnie should’ve brought his earplugs, since the doctor has warned him he can’t afford much more damage to his hearing. But no way he was showing up to The Troc like some old man.

“Finally,” Reeves says when the band takes five.

Donnie smiles. “This used to be my life at the beginning. Going club to club, often with only a few people in the crowd. This was where we played our first show.”

Reeves nods. He’s not taking notes, but he’s always on the clock, Donnie realizes. This is only backstory, a feel for his subject’s life.

The bartender comes over, asks if they want another round. Donnie nods, says, “Hey, you see that picture?”

The bartender turns, looks at a black-and-white on the back wall.

“That’s me back when Phil owned the place.”

With zero enthusiasm, the bartender says, “Cool.”

It’s gonna be one of those nights when Donnie’s reminded of a truism in life: No one cares.

“How old were you when you played here?” Reeves asks.

Donnie doesn’t need to think on it. It was a few months after leaving Savior House. “Fourteen.”

“No one cared you were underage?”

“Back then? Shoot, they didn’t care about anything.”

“You were on your own? I mean, you’d left Savior House by then.”

How the hell does Reeves know the name of the group home? The guy definitely does his research.

“Yep. We crashed in the van or with girls we met on the road or sometimes the house bands would put us up.”

“Why’d you take the leap and leave the group home?”

Donnie shrugs. “It was time,” he replies, vaguely. “Funny story: When you open for other bands, the drummers often share their kits to avoid having to set up and sound check and all that, since drums are tricky.” He takes a drink, grins. “So the second time we played here, our drummer left his kit in the van and when we came out after the show, the windows were smashed and it was gone. But there was this guy sitting on the curb and we asked if he saw who took ’em. He said he thought so, and might be able to get them back for us.”

Reeves seems uninterested, but Donnie keeps going.

“So the guy leaves and when he comes back about ten minutes later he says for two hundred bucks he can get the drums back. We’d only made ninety bucks for the show for all of us, but we had

no choice and gave him all our cash.”

“Did you get the drums back?”

“Oh yeah, he gave us an address and we found them in a boarded-up row house down the block.

But that’s the funny thing: When we told the house band what happened, the dudes all laughed and said the guy who’d got our drums back was in on the whole thing. He and his crew did this like twice a week to out-of-town bands.” Donnie bellows a laugh. “The guy made his living selling drummers back their own equipment.”

Next, he tells Reeves about Tom climbing the speakers to the balcony and leaping off into the outstretched arms of the audience. About drinking with the boys from Cinderella at this very bar.

About the bouncers of the club wearing shirts that said TROC CREW/ FUCK YOU and the regulars responding with FUCK YOU, TROC CREW shirts of their own.