Ever since they were eighteen year-old kids sharing a bedroom, before they even had cell phones, Quinn got late-night calls from Bert. Bert would wake the entire house up at 3am, and when Quinn's mom handed him the phone, he'd hear Bert's scratchy voice saying, "So I'm at this place...with this guy...he doesn't like me..." Quinn would get Bert to hand off the phone to someone who could give him directions, and he'd pick up a drunk, strung-out, and sometimes bruised Bert from a party where he'd stayed long past his welcome.
One night, driving home from Bert's now-ex-girlfriend's house, Bert holding his face where she'd slapped him, he'd laughed, the kind of giggle only Bert could make endearing instead of creepy, and said, "Someday we'll be rock stars."
"Hell yeah," Quinn said. "Then we'll pay someone to get slapped for us." He'd just sent yet another demo off to John Feldmann, and while he was about ready to give up, Bert kept coming up with song ideas, and Quinn couldn't bring himself to tell Bert that John would probably never like their stuff.
Quinn pulled into his driveway and turned the car off. He looked over at Bert, who was in no hurry to leave the car, just staring out the window up at the moon, or the trees, or maybe just the black sky. Bert looked impossibly tiny for a moment, and Quinn wanted to just pull him into his bed and keep him there forever. He wanted to keep him safe. The world Bert lived in was big and scary, and Bert was so little.
As if sensing he was being watched, Bert looked over, smiled, and stretched out to kiss Quinn on the corner of the mouth.
Years later Bert called Quinn as Quinn sat on the tour bus jamming with Jeph. "I'm in a place," Bert said. "There's some concrete...and some blood..." Quinn found him in the parking garage next to the lot where their bus was, with a black eye, a bloody nose, and no shoes. He didn't even ask Bert what had happened, just reached down and helped him to his feet.
Bert spit blood on the ground. "You should see the other guy," he said with a giggle. He turned his head and kissed Quinn on the cheek.
He smelled like whiskey and copper, and Quinn gripped his upper arm, and held on as long as he could.