Chapter Text
Greenwich Village, 1969
“Harry, Harry.”
Harry turns over, burying his head in his pillow and showing his back to Gemma. She kneels on the bed, bouncing lightly and tugging on the long curls at the nape of his neck.
He’s not sure if he’s awake, really, but his head is fuzzy, his eyelashes sticking together with the sand of sleep, and his feet feel numb. That last one might possibly be because Gemma is sitting heavily on his thighs.
“I told you not to fall asleep.” She sighs, long-suffering with her sixteen years. “I knew this would happen.”
It’s really unfair of her, because all he wants to do right now is sleep. Like, he’d give his Blonde on Blonde record to roll over, close his eyes, and forget that this whole day happened. Well, maybe not Dylan, that record’s his favorite at the moment, but, he’d give one of his records. One of the important ones. Because his head is still spinning from gym class, where two of the guys on the football – excuse him, soccer – team laughed his non-regulation white tube socks off the field; or, the lunch room, where he scared away the nice boy from biology by adding ketchup to his cheese sandwich; or, biology itself, where he took charge of dissecting their frog, earning himself a smile from his cute lab partner, only to then scare him away in the lunch room.
American junior high is hard. And all Harry wants to do is sleep it all away.
Gemma, though, seems to have other ideas.
She twists her knee, bony and angular from hours of field hockey practice, digging it into his hipbone. It hurts, a whole hell of a lot, and without thinking about it he cries out, reaching a hand down to slap her away from under his comforter.
“Shh.” She hisses. It’s louder than his own cry and he opens his mouth to tell her so, when her eyes widen and she covers his mouth with her hand. It smells like ivory soap and tobacco. “Don’t wake mom or we’re never getting out of here.”
He licks her palm and she frowns, pulling it back and shaking his cooties off. The tobacco smell lingers on his tongue and he sticks it out, trying to air it out. He doesn’t really think tongues work that way, but it’s worth a try.
Gemma’s still frowning at him. “Gross.”
He raises an eyebrow, “Ow,” and points to where her knee is still pressed painfully into his side.
“Got you up, didn’t it?” She leans in, a prolonged pinch of pain, before she must decide his head is sufficiently cleared and hops off the bed. Harry’s eyes follow her as she makes her way to his closet, her ass swaying in her lilac pantsuit. She’s dressed up, now that Harry things about it, hair falling silky and straight down her back and eyes rimmed in dark eye shadow when she turns to glare at him. “Doesn’t mom ever buy you anything decent?”
His shrug is pretty ineffective against the mattress. He’s never paid a whole lot of attention to what mom buys him. Their trips to the mall are always spent in Larry’s Apple Record Store, talking with Larry – part-time local DJ, part-time album collector, and full-time Harry’s idol – while his mom browses through Gimbels and Sears.
Gemma finally settles on a pair of pink and yellow floral jeans – the only thing he’s ever begged mom to buy him, but hasn’t actually worn out of the house yet – and a simple black button-up. She adds a belt with a heavy silver buckle, the one he stole from their father’s drawer the day he left them, and throws the pile at him.
“Put these on.”
“Fuck, that could have hurt.”
“Language, little brother.”
He sticks his tongue out at her because, really, she’s going to call him out on language when she’s minutes away from sneaking him away to a rally? Sisters.
It’s cold when he unburies himself from his quilt, and his hands shake a little as he does up the shirt. He ducks his head, looking away as he tucks it into the bell-bottoms and threads the belt through the colored belt loops. Now that he’s a little more awake, he remembers what they’re about to do, and with that memory come the mix of nerves and excitement that have been dogging him all day.
He flips his hair, running his hands through it to loosen his curls, before looking up at her from under his fringe. “Good?”
She purses her lips, motioning for him to turn around. He has the distinct feeling that she’s checking him out, or, pretending to be a thirteen-year-old girl checking him out. He doesn’t have the heart to tell her that it’s a useless exercise.
“Hmm.” She steps forward, reaching out to flick open the first four buttons of his shirt so that it’s hanging open to his belly-button. He resists the urge to cross his arms over his chest.
“Don’t,” she warns, as if she can read his mind. She probably can, if that time he came home to find her reading the particularly buff issue of Batman he had hidden under his pillow is anything to go by.
He feels a little exposed and a lot ridiculous, but he stands still, arms at his sides and skin exposed, as Gemma tuts for a few more seconds, looking more and more like their mother as the line on her forehead deepens. He hopes he doesn’t have a line like that when he’s sixteen.
Finally, she pulls the yellow headband from her hair and settles it in his curls. She futzes for a long moment, pulling bits of hair under the band, brushing others off his forehead, until she sighs happily and steps back. “Perfect.”
“Gemma-”
“Nah uh, no whining, mister. Everyone’s going to be dressed just like you. You’ll fit right in.” She leans forward, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Or out, if that’s what you’d prefer.”
He can feel his cheeks radiating heat as he flushes. He figures he’ll manage the latter, whether he likes it or not.
He can remember being a regular kid, back in Holmes Chapel. Perhaps a little more charismatic than the other boys, maybe a little more obsessive than them, but, generally, he was a normal kid who played football, played the guitar, and dicked around with his mates. In New York, though, he doesn’t belong anywhere. His accent sticks out at school. At his piano lessons, his teacher scolds him for his long fingers and cuts his fingernails to the quick to make up for it. At the pool, he sits in his lifeguard chair, pale and rod-thin and not quite grown into his feet yet. No amount of headbands or open shirts are going to suddenly make him fit in.
Not to mention the, uh, other thing. But, he’s not ready to talk about that yet. He’s barely ready to think it.
“Stop that.” Gemma pulls his hand from where he’s been fiddling, self-consciously, with his hair, and wraps her arm around his waist. “You’re going to ruin all my hard work before I even have a chance to take a picture.” She holds up their new Polaroid camera, the one Robin gave her when they got off the plane from London. “Smile.”
The camera clicks, spitting out the picture, and she shakes it out before tilting it so he can see. They do look pretty good, he agrees, begrudgingly. Kind of like the people he sees in Rolling Stone ads and in the commercials on Hawaii 5-O, whenever he’s allowed to stay up late enough to watch it.
Gemma seems satisfied, too, and she digs around his desk for a black Sharpie. She writes under the picture in big block letters, ‘Harry’s First Protest.’
“There, now it’s documented. In case we get arrested and need proof to convince our grandkids that we were cool back in the ‘ole sixties.”
Harry’s mouth goes dry. “Arrested?”
“Just a joke, geez.” Gemma shrugs. “There’s almost no chance of that.”
Harry doesn’t like the sound of almost, but he’s never backed down from a dare in his life and he’s not going to start now. Besides, if Gemma’s sleazy boyfriend comes through like he promised, there might be a concert at the end of it. Not that Harry has any faith in Peter, but-
A Bob Dylan Concert. Harry’s so excited he says the words in all caps in his head, just to hear how they sound. They sound pretty damn great.
“C’mon, H, we’re gonna be late.”
How they can be late to a protest, Harry isn’t really sure. He kind of thought they happened in parades and rallies, things you can come and go from easily. Was counting on it, actually.
Gemma’s already half-way out his window, though, so he doesn’t have a chance to ask before he’s following her out and down the tree that stands just outside his bedroom window. He climbs carefully, aware that Gemma will kill him if he messes up his outfit, and when he hops down the last few steps, Gemma is already at the car, making out with Peter against his flashy-as-shit 1955 sea foam green Cadillac convertible.
It’s gross. The kiss, Peter’s giant hands on Gemma’s waist, the way the car engine revs in response to something Harry’s only read about in the dirty magazines Robin hides in the attic and thinks Harry knows nothing about.
Harry shoves his hands in his pockets, hunching his shoulders as he makes his way over to them.
Peter glances up from Gemma’s mouth and sneers. “You brought the kid? What are you, twelve?”
“Thirteen,” Harry bites back as he climbs into the backseat, holding his knees to his chest so that he can fit. Harry’s only met Peter a couple of times, but he’s already more than aware that he’s not Peter’s favorite person. Good thing the feeling’s mutual.
Gemma, though, just hits Peter’s shoulder and jumps over the door to sit in the passenger seat. “Thirteen’s a perfect age. Wasn’t Dr. King always talking about starting people young? Besides, Harry knows more about music than both of us combined.”
Peter snorts.
In the backseat, Harry smirks, where no one can see him. Someday, he’s going to challenge Peter to a musical trivia contest. Harry’s been studying music since before he could walk, and even though he had been forced to leave most of his record collection behind in Holmes Chapel, he’s slowly amassing a new one with the tips he makes at the pool and his mother’s extra clothing money.
And, since he’s not on the football – soccer, why can’t he get that? – team this year, he spends the bulk of his free time lying on his bed, Koss headphones over his ears, listening to Joan Baez, The Mamas and the Papas, Woody Guthrie, The Beatles. Much to his mother’s consternation, who’s taken to muttering things about delicate eardrums and boys should be outside under her breath every afternoon when he gets home from school.
“I just got a copy of the Twickenham session.” Harry says, proudly, before adding, in case Peter doesn’t understand the importance of that feat. “You know, from the rehearsals for Let It Be? Some of the last recordings the Beatles made as a group. It’s really rare.”
“Music,” Peter says, turning around to look at Harry, “isn’t about collecting albums. It’s about what’s in here.” He taps at Harry’s chest, on the right side of his breastbone. Harry assumes he means his heart and just has terrible grades in anatomy.
It’s stupid, anyway. Harry listens to music with his ears, not his heart.
He crosses his arms, settling back in his seat. “I know that.” Even though something niggles at him, like, maybe Peter has a point. Peter’s an idiot, though, so probably not.
“Peter, can you not?” Gemma complains from the front seat, tugging on Peter’s arm until he turns back around and kisses her again.
There’s a lot of tongue. It’s still gross.
Harry crosses his arms tighter over his chest as Peter finally puts the car in drive and pulls away from the curb.
***
It’s a rally for- well, Harry doesn’t really know what it’s a rally in protest of. On his right, there’s a woman in a baseball cap holding a sign that says Students Against the War, chanting “tell me what a feminist looks like, this is what a feminist looks like” in his ear. On his left, there’s a man, tall, with a beer-belly and a shining gold nose ring, chanting about the War in Vietnam while waving a pro-Marijuana bandana.
On the nightly news, Walter Cronkite’s been talking about the lack of focus in the counterculture movements. Harry hadn’t really understood it, until now. But, he likes it. It’s unique, different, confused, and Harry likes unique, different, and confused. He relates to it.
“Here.” Gemma shoves a Stop the War! sign into Harry’s hands. The exclamation point is wide and loopy, and he asks the woman in the baseball cap if he can borrow her marker.
“Sure, kid. This your first protest?”
Harry opens the marker, holding the top between his teeth as he shades in the exclamation point with dark red strokes, so his words are a little muffled around it. “How could you tell?”
“Only amateurs don’t come prepared.”
He feels stupid. He doesn’t like being bad at things, and he didn’t know that protests were even something you could be bad at. “Ah, yeah. I’ll be better prepared, next time.” He holds out the marker.
“Nah, you keep it.” She winks at him. “A souvenir.”
And, okay, she wasn’t trying to make him feel bad. He’s too sensitive, always has been. “Thanks.” Harry finds himself smiling, really smiling, for one of the first times since he left England. Maybe there are some nice people in America.
“No problem, kid. Enjoy yourself, and get in lots of trouble.” She throws a wave as she lets herself get swept up in the crowd that’s beginning to march.
Harry turns his head, finding Gemma and Peter behind him, talking with a group of older kids, who must be Peter’s friends from NYU. He’s holding one of the Students Against the War signs, as if he’s trying to drive home his age and stature, as if he has something to prove. At a peaceful protest. Harry hates un-genuine people.
Gemma, though, waves him over with her We Are the 51% Minority sign. “Thought I’d lost you already.”
“Nah.” Harry smiles. “Just making friends.”
The smile she gives him is so big, so real, that Harry feels bad for hating it here. He hasn’t meant to take it out on her, but he’s not gonna lie and say that he hasn’t spent many nights lying awake, listening to Dylan or Peter, Paul, and Mary, resenting Gemma for the easy time she’s had of it. And it’s not like she hasn’t abandoned him for Peter. Maybe this protest thing will be good for all of them.
He holds up his sign and joins in with the “end the nuclear race, not the human race” chant that’s started up around them.
***
Gemma wraps her fingers around Harry’s arm, a reminder that she’s there as much as a way to get his attention as she points at a sign to their left. “Look at that one.”
Harry follows her gaze, and has to stifle a laugh in his free elbow. Pro Dog, the sign exclaims with a hastily drawn stick figure of a dog with long, loopy ears.
“Who isn’t?”
Gemma laughs. “Beats me.”
Harry scans the crowd, looking for another strange one, before lighting on a Who Farted? sign, carried steady and high by a severe looking woman in an all-black ensemble and sunglasses perched on her head, even though it’s pushing 10 pm. “There,” he points to Gemma.
“Oh my god.” She bends over in laughter, and Harry joins her, feeling light and open, a little bad about laughing at a peace rally, but more just happy. They stumble for a few steps, heads bent together, laughing into each others’ air, until they realize how far they’re lagging and run to catch up with Peter’s group.
They spend the rest of the walk pointing out their favorites.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
I’m So Angry I Made A Sign
UFO’s Are Real & The Government Knows It! Harry likes that one, a lot, and, when he points it out to Gemma, he must stare a little too long, because the woman carrying it stares him down.
“You got a problem with my sign?”
“Ahh, no, I-” Harry holds up his own sign protectively. “I like it, I just- Can I-?” He holds out his hand for it.
She squints her eyes at him, as if she’s trying to determine his soul’s intentions on his skin. Maybe Gemma was right to spend so much time on finding him the right clothes, though, because, eventually, she nods, clearly having found what she was looking for.
“Thanks,” he says, sincerely, as he accepts the sign. He holds his own between his knees as he digs around his back pocket for the red marker. “I’m Harry.”
“Bea.”
“Nice to meet you.” He finishes his drawing and holds it out so they both can see. It’s quick, a little rough, the edges of the spaceship unsteady and the alien is waving three hands and two antenna. Not his best work, but Harry kinda likes it.
“Hey, cool.” Bea accepts the sign back, before reaching out to ruffle Harry’s hair. “You’re a good kid.”
“Ahh.” Her eyes are kind of dark and he swallows. He doesn’t want anything more than a verbal thank you, and he’s pretty sure that, if he sticks around for much longer, he’ll get more. “Thanks. I’ve, ahh, my sister-” He points in Gemma’s general direction.
Bea waves her sign at him, now sufficiently illustrated, and Harry slips back to their group. Gemma nods to where Harry left Bea. “That your work?”
Harry glances back at it. It looks pretty rad, if he does say so. “Yep.”
“Knew those long afternoons with the sketchpad would get you somewhere.”
Harry smiles, absently tracing the top of his left wrist, where he really wants his art to come to fruition. He doesn’t say anything, though. Gemma’s cool, she’s always had his back, pushed him to do new things, to explore who he is. Hell, she bought him his first record, a beat up copy of Help! she found at the thrift store in Cheshire when he was eight years old. She had even let him listen to it on her record player, laid out on his back on her floor long past his bedtime.
Ink, though. Ink is personal, permanent, important. Harry wants to be sure, before he mentions it, even to Gemma.
So, he doesn’t mention it. Just like he doesn’t point out the signs that really catch his eye. The ones that make him want to cry rather than laugh, the ones that fill him with second-hand frustration and rage, things he doesn’t quite, yet, understand or know what to do with. All he knows is that he’s drawn to them, with some buried, foundational part of himself.
Stonewall Means Fight Back
I Am a Lesbian and I Am Beautiful
Gay, Proud, and Angry
Gay is Good. Gay is Great.
And, while the rest of this protest feels a little silly, a little more like a playful airing of grievances than a full-blown rally, when he sees those signs he gets it. The feeling of solidarity, the need to fight back, en masse, against something real and concrete. It’s a powerful feeling.
So, Harry makes note of them. For later. When he’s old enough to sort out all those emotions. When he’s old enough to do something about them.
“Hey, Harry.” Peter pulls him out of his thoughts, reaching around Gemma to push at Harry’s shoulder. “Look at that one.”
Peter’s smirking, which never bodes well for Harry. He doesn’t want to look, but, his curiosity always gets the best of him. Every damn time. So, he turns to read this sign.
I’d Rather Touch Myself Than Little Children
Harry thinks he ducks his head quick enough for no one to catch the way he blushes, all the way from his belly button to his ears. Damn Gemma and her open shirts.
“Peter, come on man. He’s a little young for that one, don’t you think?” Peter’s friend – Eric? Aaron? – asks. Harry’s not sure if he’s taking the piss, but when Harry glances over, his brow is furrowed. Definitely a real, serious, question then.
Harry’s blush deepens. Damn him. Peter’s friend is fit, all dirty blond hair and blue eyes, wearing a Byrds shirt that pulls across his chest and stretches over his biceps. The last thing Harry wants is to feel even younger around him.
Gemma laughs. “Not if you ask his sock drawer.”
Harry stares at her in mortification. He had thought he was being subtle, and why is she paying attention to that stuff, anyway? He’s never touching himself again. Except, maybe, behind the bleachers after gym class. That’s probably safe. And in the school bathroom, when he stays late for bio lab and there’s no one else around. That should be okay.
Fuck his life.
Harry feels a heavy arm around his shoulders and he looks up to see Eric/Aaron/too-fit-to-care-about-his-name winking down at him. “Dirty running shorts work great. They hide everything.”
His breath is warm against Harry’s neck, the words smooth and slippery in his ear, and Harry has to fight against his dick as he nods and swallows. “Thanks.”
He squeezes Harry’s shoulder and lets go. Shame. “No problem, little bro.”
Harry can’t decide if his life sucks more or less than it did ten minutes ago. Is what it is, he supposes.
Besides, they’ve finally reached the rally point, and Gemma reaches out to wrap her fingers around Harry’s wrist, pulling him to a small spot to the left of the stage, where, if he stands on his tiptoes, leaning on Gemma’s shoulders for support, he can see the folk cover band. They’re not as good as Peter, Paul, and Mary, but they’re pretty damn awesome.
Harry’s spent a lot of time listening to music in the privacy of his or Gemma’s rooms. Or, at the most, listening to Frank Sinatra in the living room, giggling behind his hand as his mom and Robin try something approaching a waltz, tripping over their feet and laughing in each others’ arms.
“You don’t have dancing genes,” his mother would tell him, looking over at his and Gemma’s grinning faces. “But Styles, we know how to love.”
Harry’s taken those words to heart. Or, he hopes to. Someday.
So, Harry knows a lot about listening to music privately, and it holds nothing on listening with so many people. Hundreds of people, singing the words, yelling them out as the band leads the chorus of protesters. Their voices ring out over the assembly, guitars cutting through the friendly chatter, and Harry sees, in a flash, how protests work. He sees change, community, the flow of ideas through music. He feels it in his blood, a kinship, drawing him closer to these strangers than he ever has been to anyone and, suddenly, the rally feels cohesive, harmonized, thrumming through his bones in perfect time.
Well, I’ve got a hammer, and I’ve got a bell.
The singer points to the crowd, and Harry belts out, his voice joining Gemma’s and Peter’s, Bea’s and the guy’s with the marijuana bandana.
And I’ve got a song to sing, all over this land.
It’s the hammer of justice, it’s the bell of freedom.
Harry wraps his arm around the man next to him, a slight, middle aged man, with a balding spot on the back of his head. The female lead singer points the microphone at the crowd and voices swell together, It’s a song about love between my brothers and my misters, all over this land.
He throws his head back, joining the rally and the band as they finish out the song.
It’s the hammer of justice, it’s the bell of freedom
It’s a song about love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
Gemma glances over at him as she holds out the last note, tears shimmering at the edge of her eyes as she leans over and presses a long, gentle kiss to his cheek.
“Thank you,” he mouths at her.
She grins, squeezing the back of his neck. “I love you, H.”
***
Harry holds tight to Gemma’s sleeve as they push through the throngs of the rally, ducking out onto MacDougal Street. The early morning air is crisp against Harry’s heated skin, smelling of apples and leaves, bakeries already preparing onion bagels and brewing burned Arabic coffee for morning commuters, cigarettes and piss and Jack Daniels. It’s fall in New York, and Harry pauses, just for a moment, to close his eyes and imagine, for a brief second, that the smells on the wind, the orange lights of the street lamps and the sounds of catcalls and the subway clanging under his feet, that’s it’s all for him. That he is New York City in a way he never really will be.
“Haz, come on.” Gemma pulls at his wrist, wrapping her fingers around his pressure point and tugging.
He stumbles into her back, clammy with sweat that’s both hers and everyone else’s, her dirty-blond hair clinging to his nose as he laughs, giddy and surreal, standing in the middle of MacDougal Street, feeling such a sense of history and connection and destiny. “Do you know-?” He asks, having to laugh, incredulously for a moment. “Do you know who else has stood, like, right here?”
Gemma laughs, her mouth wide and red, just like their mother’s. “No. I have no idea.”
“Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor.”
“Oh, I like him. He’s funny.”
“Gem-”
“Harry,” she parrots, but she’s still smiling at him.
He sighs. “Nothing, just-” There’s a woman on the sidewalk next to him, bent over a Lesbians Are Citizens Too sign. Harry can’t look away. “Do you believe in fate?”
She pulls him under her arm, away from the woman and the sign, from his thoughts and his spot, frozen, in the middle of the street. People are streaming out of the rally, pushing and pulling around them like ants on LSD, and she holds him close as they make their way to Cafe Wha? “Like, do I believe that, someday, you’ll be on that list?”
Harry feels himself flush at the implication. “No, no, not like, not like that, but, maybe, that I’ll do something good, too? Like, make music that means something?”
“I have no doubt that you’ll do something special.”
She has to say that, she’s his sister. It feels pretty great, anyway.
They circle around the back of the club, past the line of patrons stretched around the block to get in, to where Peter’s chatting with the backstage security guy. He’s a friend of Peter’s from university, has the same cut of his jaw, the same macho way of standing with his knees spread wider than, Harry assumes with a quick glance at the guy’s crotch, they need to be. Harry would dislike him already, if he wasn’t ushering their group inside.
“Try,” Peter says, as Harry ducks under his arm to get in, “not to embarrass me, yeah?”
“Only if you promise not to open your mouth and let anyone hear that cat wail you call a voice,” Harry bites back.
Peter might say something back, or Gemma might manage to restrain him, Harry has no idea. He’s too entranced by the club as they get to the bottom of the stairs and step into the large, open room. It’s spare, the walls exposed brick, bare of pictures or memorabilia. The room is filled with rickety wooden tables, benches, and chairs, all crowded with young people, dressed in denim and floral headbands, women with long, straight hair and men with long curls and unkempt beards.
Rally signs are stacked against the sound equipment lining the small, slightly-raised stage, and Harry grabs his and Gemma’s, adding them to the mix. It feels cohesive, good, like Harry’s a part of something, like the rally has, finally, managed to cohere down here in this historic club.
They find a table for four and squeeze eight around it, all standing and swaying to the duo on stage. Harry doesn’t know them but they’re good, clearly hired to rev the crowd between the rally and Dylan’s arrival.
“Drinks?” Peter’s friend asks, pointing around the circle, and Harry doesn’t protest when he comes back with a bottle of whiskey and eight plastic cups.
The first sip burns going down and he coughs, tears threatening at the corners of his eyes, and he tries to cover his discomfort by taking another, much longer, swallow. It’s a terrible idea, as ideas go. Now his throat and his lungs hurt, and he’s coughing into his hand with small, hitching, chest-deep coughs.
“I’m just gonna-” He waves, vaguely, to the back of the club, where he assumes the restrooms are.
The place is crowded, and it gets worse as he inches his way around the bar, pressing against peoples’ backs and tripping over their converse sneakers and polka-dot platform shoes. He keeps his head down, hunched over his cup, still coughing a little and trying to stem it with small, smoother sips of the whiskey.
He doesn’t notice the kid at the end of the bar, nursing a whiskey sour with the same, careful sips. He’s a couple years older, hair swept over his forehead and spiked at the back of his neck, dressed in a red Led Zeppelin shirt hanging loose over tight black jeans. His fingers are long and thin, clutched tightly around his drink to keep them from shaking, his striking blue eyes holding the same awe as Harry’s are.
Harry keeps his head down, though, his eyes still a little watery and his neck sweating along the collar of his button-up.
In the bathroom, he sprays cold water on his face, his neck, and his ankles. He feels his body temperature settle as he wipes his hands on the knees of his jeans and heads back to the table.
“Good,” Gemma says, smiling at him as he squeezes next to her. “You’re just in time.”
She nods to the stage, where Cafe Wha?’s owner, Manny Roth, is stepping up to the mic. He taps it, before clearing his throat. “Thank you all for coming to the rally tonight. New York appreciates your support. Our closing act needs no introduction. Please welcome Mr. Bob Dylan.”
Harry hears the harmonica before he sees Dylan. Piercing and melodic, it sounds like Americana, the very roots of folk music, like he dug down deep and found musical inspiration in the center of the earth. Harry’s hands feel dirty, gritty, stained with history, just from hearing it.
He realizes, rather quickly, that he’s never actually listened to music before. Not like this. Not with his whole body, from his ankles to his collarbone, the lyrics reverberating off his skin, his lungs, his knees. No amount of lying on his bed, volume jacked into his headphones, could prepare him for experiencing songs like this.
Harry’s fingers itch for a guitar. His throat struggles not to sing. His shoulders sway, in time with Dylan’s strumming. Fuck Peter for being right about something, because Harry realizes, in an instant, that he’s been listening to music with his mind when he should be experiencing it with his whole being.
It doesn’t take Harry long to make up his mind. It’s a short set, four songs to cap an already packed night. But, by the time Dylan reaches the encore, a perfectly fitting rendition of “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” Harry finds himself singing along, under his breath.
Come writers and critics, who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon, for the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s naming
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times, they are a-changin’
As he sings along it feels like a promise, a decision to give his life to this. To making music, to making this kind of music, folksy and earthy and important.
“Glad you came?” Gemma asks, as they make their way back to Peter’s car after the show. The sun is just rising in the alleyways between the buildings, and Harry has to squint as he climbs into the backseat.
“Life changing,” he admits, and it feels inadequate as he pulls his knees to his chest and rests his chin on them.
He feels light enough to blow away in the light morning breeze as they climb back up the tree by Harry’s bedroom window. Gemma lingers just long enough to give him one, quick, sweaty hug.
“Thank you,” he whispers, still a little awed by all of it.
She ruffles his hair, her fingers tightening around the curls at his neck before pulling away. She turns in the doorway and winks at him before disappearing into her own room.
When he turns to get into bed, he catches sight of the polaroid lying on his desk. It’s strange, Harry thinks, that he looked exactly the same a few hours ago, when he let Gemma pull him out of bed and dress him in floral bell-bottoms. He doesn’t feel the same at all.
He picks up the Sharpie and adds, under Gemma’s ‘Harry’s first protest,’ in dark, unwavering lettering, ‘+ first time mtg Bob Dylan.’ He pins it to his bulletin board, next to his latest grade report and half under a diagram of the most common guitar chords, where his mom won’t find it next time she’s picking up after him.
***
“See,” he tells his mom, three years later when he leaves home to hitchhike across the country rather than attend university, digging through his bulletin board to find the picture. It’s faded, the colors in Gemma’s pant suit less vibrant and Harry’s expression a little blurred, but he handles it gently as he hands it to his mom. “I’m going to do something important.”
She stares at the picture, tracing Harry’s image with her fingertip. “I know, sweetie. I’ve always known.”
“About-?”
“About this?” She waves the picture. “Yes.”
“How did you-? We snuck out.”
She shakes her head, smiling through her quiet, simple tears. “You were never as subtle as you thought you were.”
Harry gapes at her. If she knew about that, she might know about all the nights after when he snuck away to Case Wha? She might even know about the time with Gary from biology and- He takes a deep breath. No use working himself up during his last few moments home.
“I’ve always known that you were going to do something important, love. Ever since you were a little boy.”
“Thanks, mum.”
She pulls him into a hug, wiping her eyes behind his embrace, before she pulls back and hands him his bag. “You’ll be safe, won’t you? And call? Whenever you can.”
“All the time,” he agrees.
“Good, then, you best be off, before I start proper crying.”
Harry doesn’t want to go as much as wants to, but he forces himself to shoulder his duffle bag, blow her a kiss, and walk out the screened front door.
When he’s gone, she tapes the picture to the refrigerator door. It eases, a little, the throb of missing him every time she sees it.