Participants:
| Scene Title | All Eyes On The Liar |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | In the wake of seeing Elaine, Robyn Quinn does something she hasn't done in years. |
| Date | April 2, 2018 |
Dirk and Robyn's Apartment, Bay Ridge
It's late. So late that Robyn Quinn isn't even sure of what the time really is as she pushes open the door to her and Dirk's spare room. It's been a long day - a ride back from Rochester, a ill-fated trip to Yamagato Park, and then far too much alcohol at Dirty Pool - Nicole had been nice enough to make sure she got home. She wasn't black out drunk, but she maybe went a little too hard.
She feels better now, at least in the sense that she no longer feels she needs to be sitting for her own good. Her eye half lidded as she steps into the spare room, she lets her gaze sweep across the room, the door click closed behind her. The spare room was always a tradition of hers - her tiny apartment in Brooklyn had had one, her room at Gun Hill had one, and the second bedroom in The Verb had functioned as one as well. In those days, it had simply functioned as a small music room, eggshell lining taped to the walls to help absorb the sound as she wrote and worked, or to keep sound out when she wanted to read a book, away from the rest of the world.
Now it felt like so much more.
The walls as lined with paintings, by various painters in various styles, though most prominently belonging to Eve Mas. Some are hung up, others lean against the wall in frames. Ominously, the one Eve painted of her in 2011, older scarred, dressed for business and in an office with a freshly fired gun held out sits mounted on the wall straight ahead from the door. Intentional or not, it sends a message. The floor of the room is littered with a myriad of antiques and odds and ends, scavenged or bought at places like The Vault. A piece of a bench sits on the floor of the south room, between an odd shaped sculpture and a stack of paintings.
As Robyn pads across the floor in stockinged feet, she can still hear the TV out in the living room; she already couldn't remember what Dirk had been watching. Pulling the band off of her eye - she still has both her contacts in from Elaine's - she makes her way over to the painting of herself, reaching behind it and pulling out a notebook - an inventory. She never bothers to ask which of Eve's paintings were precognitive unless the information is volunteered, but she keeps a good stock of them all in case anyone decides to make off with anything. And cataloguing them… was not something she needed to be doing.
But it always helps her focus. It also distracts her from the world around her, much in the same way music does.
She flips to the sixth page - the first five are all fake names and descriptions, and she begins to do just that. To catalogue. She already has no idea what time it is, but all concept of it melts away as she goes through the paintings, starting with the ones on the wall. West, North-
She pauses as she reaches the northeast corner of the room. It's the one spot in the room that isn't filled with paintings, or a vase, or an old wrought metal clock, or some other oddity. This corner, instead, harkens back to another time - a theme that has been prevalent in her life the last few months. This corner is where she indulges her one habit she rarely talks about with anyone except for Dirk.
This is where she fixes up old music equipment she buys or recovers, replacing the electronics, installing pickups or strings, straightening truss rods, making sure necks aren't warped, Here, sits the one acoustic guitar she still owns, alongside a stained once-white Fender Telecaster and an amp that is somehow still functional and only required frame and grill replacement. Two pedals and cords sit in front of the Tele, and Robyn Quinn looks at them for a long moment with her notebook in hand. Teeth rake across her lower lip
It's late, but something compels her in a way she hasn't felt in years. She shouldn't even be considering this. And yet…
The notebook is placed on top of an old record player - not the one she uses, that's on the south wall, but one she's been meaning to see if she can fix. Hesitantly, she leans to the amp, and flicks the on switch. The grey light on the front springs to life, still plugged in from when she had tested it to see if it was working. A dull hum issues forth, and next her gaze turns to the Telecaster. A cord is picked up, plugged into one of the pedals - distortion, the tape across it says - and then run into the Telecaster, Robyn lifting it off the stand it rests on, a pick previously slipped between strings for testing pulled out.
It's weight is unfamiliar. Not just in the sense that she never owned or played a Tele, but in that the whole concept of holding this electric guitar feels foreign. She grimaces and pulls it further up in her grip, sliding the worn strap around her shoulder. She releases it to adjust it, letting out an unprepared oof at the way it falls, the weight that pulls at her. With moment's pause, she takes a long breath and listens to the hum of the amplifier.
She closes her eyes.
She lets out her held breath.
She shuts out the rest of the world.
A strum, to check the tuning. Still E Standard from her test after fixing it.
And she lets her hands move on their own.
A finger moves to the small e string, 10th fret, and she begins to strum the single string at an accelerated pace. Recognition is immediate. She knows this song. She counts the measures in 4/4 time - six until the drums would come, still able to hear the beat in the back of her head. Once upon a time, she'd been almost able to play it, a feat when it came to her and the drums.
A few more until her fingers move to the B string, 12th fret. The vocals come in here, and out of reflex, she finds herself singing - it surprises her, a little.
"Pack up
I'm straight
Enough
Oh, say say say
Oh, say say say
Oh, say say say
Oh, say say say
Oh, say say say"
Chords now, as she moves into the chorus - a sour note hit, and a moment of pause washes over her. The motions, the muscle memory is mostly there, but the dexterity and limberness is not, fingers hurting as she contorts them into the required shape, tips aching a bit as she presses them into strings. Still, she presses on, her voice teeming with emotion as she resumes.
"Wait
They don't love you like I love you
Wait
They don't love you like I love you
Maaaaaaaaaaps
Wait
They don't love you like I love you…"
Her voice hitches in the last repetition, no longer trained to quite push her voice as hard as she tries to. Fingers move to the small e string, 19th fret, 17th, 15th, back to 19th, then to the B string at the 12th fret as she begins to sway in place while playing, the volume of her voice rising noticeably.
"Made off
Don't stray
My kind's your kind
I'll stay the same
Pack up
Don't stray
Oh, say say say
Oh, say say say"
There's no other people in the room, no other players. No light besides the dull incandescent bulb that occasionally flickers, hanging overhead. And despite that, Robyn can see everything, for the briefest of moments. She can hear the crash of Adel's cymbals behind her, the tapping on the high hat in rhythmic sets of three. Sable next to her, adding another layer to the song's guitar part. Royce to her side, going to town on his bass. She almost hears a crowd, in the distant recesses of her mind. The sort she'd hear at the Rock Cellar.
Her voice rises.
"Wait
They don't love you like I love you
Wait
They don't love you like I love you
Maaaaaaaaaaps
Wait
They don't love you like I love you!
Wait!
They don't love you like I love you!
Maaaaaaaaaaps
Wait!
They don't love you like I love you…"
Light washes over her, bright, vibrant, coloured light. Blue, at first, until without realising it, she's slamming her foot down the pedal in front of her, the sound of the guitar turning fuzzed and just slightly distorted as her hand slides down the strings. The light turns purple, filling her vision with clean, violet light - and she can't help but smile wider. It wavers as her hands contort into chord figures again, the tempo slowing down just the slowest bit as she tries to remember them correctly.
A tear streams down the side of her voice and over her scar, sadness welling up in the back of her throat as she hits the pedal again, the sound of the guitar once more clean and crisp as it comes through the amp.
"Wait
They don't love you like I love you
Wait
They don't love you like I love you
Maaaaaaaaaaps
Wait
They don't love you like I love you!
Wait!
They don't love you like I love you!
Maaaaaaaaaaps
Wait!
They don't love you like I love you…"
The lights change again as she hits the distortion pedal, purple to red - her favourite colour. Hands slide up and down the neck, playing strings in cords as her knees become weak, more tears joining the first vanguard in running their way down her cheeks. Shakily, she hits the pedal one last time, the sound from the amp clean as she returns to the 10th fret on the small e string, strumming rapidly as the imagined sounds of other instruments fades away. As the light washing over her turns to a dull, slightly burning white. As the cheers of a crowd vanishes in an instant. Normally, the song would transition into it's follow up, "Y Control".
It does not.
As she opens her eyes she chokes out a sob, staring at the painting of herself in front of her. Abruptly her knees, shaky and unstable, give out from under her. A discordant sound rings out as she collapses to her knees, the guitar neck banging into the carpeted floor. Hands release the instrument, leaving it to dangle by the worn strap as they cover her face. She doesn't hold back as she bursts into tears in earnest, leaning against the record player her notebook sits on.
"Je suis un menteur," she says to herself. How could she be anything but a liar, she wonders in this moment. "Tous les yeux sur le menteur!" she cries out, a first suddenly thusting out to hit the record player in front of her. It shakes from the force of the blow - but her notebook does, sliding off and hitting her in the head as it falls. She lets out another pointed sob as it does, staring down at it as it falls open on the floor.
A tear splashes against the inside of the black and white marble cover, Robyn staring at as she lets out a ragged breath. She swallows. "Tous les yeux sur le menteur…" she repeats, staring at the notebook. Choking back a sound, she reaches down to it, hands shaking . The phrase repeats in her head, sticking out. She hadn't meant anything in particular by it, more than as summation of how she feels at the moment.
But that phrase.
Pulling herself back up to her knees, she snatches the notebook up in hand, unclipping the mechanical pencil attached to it. She flips it upside down and reversed, opening with a shaky hand and uneven breathing. Click click on the pencil, and she writes something at the top.
All Eyes On The Liar
A series of phrases and words is written down. Syllables counted on fingers as she mouths words, scratching through one and replacing it with another. Her hand is shaky, movements frantic as she scrawls across the paper. Her head bobs in rhythm as she continues to mouth the words, enunciating certain ones. She gets a few sets down, trembling as she leans back and looks down at the guitar in her lap.
Closing her eyes, she takes in a deep breath and tries to steady her hands. She contorts them again into chord figures, the clean sound of the guitar filling the room as she experiments with sounds, progressions, and keys. A hand reaches up to the knobs at the guitar's headstock, turning it so that she can tune by ear. Finger move up and down as she strums, until finally, she finds a progression she likes.
Her eyes widen again, leaning down to the notebook and picking it up. The back is folded over, and she places it against the record player as a brace. She flips to the next page and draws a series of uneven lines, numbers and Xs written in a way that almost looks like code, but somehow manages to line up with her crudely drawn lines.
She pulls the guitar back into her lap, repeating this process again. It's only interrupted by by a quiet, terse "Oh!" as she flips back to the previous page and scrawls some more words in barely readable pencil. Another series of line, a previous set moved and rearranged, arrows across the page indicating new positioning.
Time has no meaning in this moment. It is fleeting at best, the barest recognition given to the fact that there are people asleep or trying to sleep, both in her apartment and elsewhere. No one has come banging on doors, floors, ceilings, or windows though, so there's nothing to break Robyn out of the trance she finds herself in as she hunches over the notebook, continuing to scratch out notations and words, constantly clipping back between the two pages.
There is a sense of desperation to how she moves, to how she barely gives through to what she writes. She can read it, and that's all that matters. Whatever has a hold of her now she isn't willing to give a moment to settle and fade, frenetic as her hands move up and down the neck of her guitar. When the lead in the pencil runs out, she simply gives it a strong shake and hopes that there is more inside waiting to be worked out.
Knees dig into the rug, graphite begins to stain her palms. Her fingers hurt, impressions of the strings dug into them. She would regret this in the morning - hungover, hands and legs in pain, devoid of energy from not getting enough sleep. But none of that matters. Not now.
Abruptly, she sits back up and stares at the notebook in front of her. Quickly, she sets it on top of the record player, running back to the front of the room to grab some tape. Four pages, one of words and three of lines, numbers, and notations, are torn out and taped to the wall behind the record player in front of her.
Adjusting the strap on the guitar, she stands up and stares at the the taped up sheets of paper, and she begins to play her guitar. A mellow, somewhat melancholy sound - slightly slower than the song she played previously. She follows along with the notations until it feels right to start doing the other half of this endeavour - she sings.
"All eyes on the liar
Songs for a pyre
The evidence you found
None of it was sound
Nothing left to prove
All I can do is move
On and on and on
On and on and on
Distant memories
Haunting reveries
Waiting endlessly
Drowning misery
All eyes on the liar
Songs for the fire
So the best of us
Is left out to rust
Drowning in the rain
All I can do is hang
On and on and on
On and on and on
Distant memories
Haunting reveries
Waiting endlessly
Drowning misery
And I am haunted
By the sights and sounds
Echoes of another life
And I am haunted
By voices I hear
Carrying this tune
And I am haunted
By the sights and sounds
Echoes of another life
And I am haunted
By voices I hear
Carrying this tune
All eyes on the liar
Throw me on the pyre
Throw me on the pyre…"
Her voice is shaky throughout, notes uneven both from voice and from instrument. She shakes as she plays, and it shows, but she powers through it, reading the notes she's written in front of her.
The song she's written in front of her, the first one since 2012 when she wrote "Swanmay".
As she sings the last line, she shudders, and this time she manages to keep herself from collapsing back down to the rug. She isn't able to keep herself from breaking back out into sobs. She pulls the guitar from her shoulders, settling back down on the ground, and she stares at the taped up pieces of paper. Impulsively, she reaches out and snatches them down.
Nothing important is torn, though tape is left on the walls. Hands shake as she stares down at "All Eyes On The Liar", as she's named it. A look over to door, where her purse sits. She rushes over to it, practically tumbling down to it as she digs through it, eventually finding that which she seeks.
A lighter.
She clicks the switch on it twice, flame spouting up from the nozzle as it activates. It's almost hypnotic, the way the flame seeming to dance as her hand quivers, everything else falling out of focus for just a moment. She doesn't, however, retrieve her cigarettes. Instead, she rises back up to her feet, leaving the contents of her purse spilled out on the floor.
With sudden resolve and determination, she walks her way back over to the record player, to the sheets of music and lyrics, and picks them up. A moment's hesitation, and she turns to the north side of the room. To the window.
She walks over to it, opens it, and holds the pieces of paper out into a slight wind. It dies enough to let the lighter she holds out next flick to life, holding it just under the sheets of paper, waiting for the fire to catch.
It does.
The wind gusts, putting it out.
Robyn furrows her brow, expression going flat as she tries to produce flame again, but this time the gust doesn't die down, making it near impossible to accomplish what she wants to do without help. Gritting her teeth, she lowers the lighter and the pages in defeat, looking out at the Safe Zone from her window.
The sun is just peeking over the clouds, and it's only then that she realises she's been at this for hours.
She gasps, hand holding the lighter moving to cover her mouth. Swallowing, she steps back from the window, and pulls it and the blinds back shut. Why had she wanted to burn these pages anyway? This was an accomplishment, wasn't it? Six years of writer's block and a lacking desire, evaporating in one emotional moment.
So why did she feel so conflicted, so uncertain about it?
The pages are set aside, and with a sigh, Robyn slumps to the floor below the window, and closes her eyes.
She'll figure this out in the morning, whenever that is.