by Amanda Kim

TRACK ONE: THE GATES WON’T WAIT

Matilda let her cigarette burn halfway to the lipstick-stained filter before she took another drag. The nicotine was an afterthought, she just wanted the warmth of the embers—the stench of American Spirits burning her nose hairs. She flaked off the chunk of ash and watched it float into the December air—it wasn’t until she brought the cigarette back to her lips that she realized Duke was standing right beside her against the church’s back wall. He didn’t say anything, the two just nodded at each other as he gripped a Newport between his veneers and Matilda lit Duke’s cig for him with her gas station lighter. Gray plumes billowed out around them—a pair of tobacco-drenched chimneys in winter. They stared out into the back parking lot—each spot filled. Matilda watched her red Corvette rest beneath a naked elm tree and thought about the box of tapes sitting in the back seat. She had found the stack of cassettes when the car was dropped off at her Chicago house last week—it was like finding some ancient artifact in the back of the ‘88 C4, though she hadn’t mustered up the courage to play them quite yet. Instead, she and Duke listened to the dull clamoring crowd of love-lorn fans at the church’s front.

Her cigarette was nearly dead when Duke finally broke their ashy silence. 

“Colder than a witch’s tit out here, huh?” Smoke veiled his face. His nose looked different, Matilda noted. Probably another nose job. Satisfaction always seemed to elude Duke like water in his hands. Even when the two of them were kids he would always switch out the rubber bands in his braces or have a new stuffed animal lying on his bed. 

“Yeah, real cold out.” She didn’t like his new nose. Too bulb-y. 

Duke sucked his teeth, “So are you gonna handle all his old stuff or are the lawyers?”

Matilda finished off her last puff before flicking the cigarette onto the concrete, “Why would I be handling his shit?”

“Because you’re the oldest,” Duke stomped out her cigarette for her with his black dress shoe, “And because you were the favorite.”

“I’m not the oldest,” was all Matilda said. 

“You think they’ll auction off the Fender?” Duke chuckled.

Matilda leaned her back against the brick wall. “That piece of shit has no value.”

“Monetarily not much. Sentimentally, yes,” he held his cigarette between his pointer and thumb, “But I mean the Lars Blake owned it!” He feigned excitement before scoffing to himself and taking another puff. “Prince of Rock and the greatest father alive…”

Matilda looked back out into the parking lot, at Dad’s old red Corvette. She thought about that old cardboard box in the backseat again—how it must’ve been from the first album recording. Dad had stopped driving the C4 by the second album. 

She watched the naked tree dance above the car in the December breeze. “Can’t sell the Fender. Aspen’s name is on the neck.”

Duke hadn’t spoken but Matilda could feel him go silent. They didn’t dare look at each other. Not at their faces. Duke may have cut up and reshaped his face like an arts and crafts project but there was still a hint of his former skin in there. A haunting reminder of his old chin or old nose. The same chin and nose as Matilda or Dad’s. Or Aspen’s. Blood was thick but Duke preferred water. 

He cleared his throat, “So you ready for your big speech?”

Matilda nodded and pulled out a wrinkled napkin from her blazer pocket, “Got it right here.” All it read was: Great musician. Good husband. A father. 

TRACK TWO: CHILDREN OF THE BLACK DRAGON

Duke and the rest of Cherry Pick were the pallbearers. Matilda walked behind, head locked forward towards the mahogany casket. 

A group of violinists by the altar were playing an orchestral rendition of “The Sun Ain’t a Star”—Cherry Pick’s magnum opus. Matilda always hated that song. She preferred “The Gates Won’t Wait” from their debut album. The first song they recorded in the studio—she was too young at the time to remember any of it, though she could still smell the stench of American Spirits festering in the air.

The procession made its way to the front and Matilda filed into the pew with her brothers and Cherry Pick. Her heels dug into her ankles and throbbed around her bunions as Father George said something about the bounty of life and Dad dying in Christ. 

“Please be seated for a word from those who knew and loved Laurence best.” The room shuffled as everyone sat their backs against the hard and unmoving wood of the pews. Matilda remained standing and took her time getting up the steps to the podium—her heels echoing against the tall church ceiling. 

The mic hissed as she cleared her throat, “Hello everyone my name is Matilda Friedm—Blake. Matilda Blake,” she paused, “I am-was, I was Laurence Blake’s first and only daughter. And as his only daughter, I was honored to be loved by a man loved by so many. He has millions and millions of fans who adore and worship him, but only one daughter,” she glanced down at her napkin, Great musician. Good husband. A father, “A-and I am that daughter…We-uh gather here today to celebrate a man’s life heard by many, but known by few. Lars—um, Laurence Blake was born in 1961 to Norma and Harold Blake, a stay-at-home mom and orthodontist respectively. He was studying dentistry at Northwestern when he and his college buddies decided to form a little band called Cherry Pick,” Matilda looked out into the congregation to see the somber faces of people she did not know. Sure, she recognized some as distant relatives or producers from the studio, but most could’ve just been blank faces to her. A sea of nothing and the stares of sycophants. 

“In his final year of college, he met my mother Georgia while performing a gig and had their first son. Dad dropped out to support his family and pursue his music career full-time. Everyone thought he was stupid or crazy, even my mother. But when they sold millions of records and became number one across the globe, no one could deny it anymore. Cherry Pick and Lars Blake were stars. My father—”

Matilda hadn’t realized the paparazzi had broken into the church until one of them crashed through the chapel doors and into the aisle. White flashed and blinded Matilda before a man in a black suit tackled the intruder and shattered his camera. Gasps and commotion crowded the air as the other black suits struggled to keep the doors shut. Over the loud murmurs of the congregation, Matilda could hear various screams of both fans and paparazzi echoing into the church. We love you, Lars! Hey Matilda, was it an overdose? Did he kill himself? Lars, we miss you! We love you!

Eventually, the black suits got everyone out and slammed the doors shut—the sound causing Matilda to momentarily jolt before finally collecting herself. She looked to Duke in the pews who nodded his head at her—silently saying go on. 

She grabbed the mic and it hissed again, “My father was a…” her eyes were still adjusting from the blinding flashes, “He was, um,” she could suddenly feel the teeth inside her head. 

Her eyes then panned to where the mahogany casket lay in front of her—though it suddenly wasn’t there. Instead, in its place was a porcelain bathtub. Overflowing out into the aisle, in it lay a scrawny blond boy. Unmoving and floating in the water.

Matilda had been doing her algebra homework when she heard the water running in the hallway.

It was Duke who got to the bathroom first. Matilda could still see his scrawny preteen frame standing in the doorway—fluorescent light silhouetting him in a doomed glow. She allowed her socks to get wet as she forced each leg in front of the other. 

Aspen’s skin was pale. Eyes hung open—drawn to the ceiling like he was star-gazing. An orange plastic bottle bobbed in the water and floated out the door. Duke ran downstairs to call the police, but Matilda’s feet were cemented beneath the sea filling up the bathroom tiles. She’d seen that pale skin and star-gazing eyes before. For the past sixteen years, she’d seen it. 

Matilda knew it wasn’t Aspen’s name on the little orange bottle. 

TRACK THREE: MOUNTAINS UP IN ASPEN

“My father wasn’t just a star, but the sun,” Matilda adjusted the mic closer to her—it didn’t hiss this time. The paparazzi were long gone and the blank faces in the pews still stared up at her. Her voice boomed against the church walls as she started up again, “He was the biggest and brightest and God help anyone who got too close to him.” 

“My son was nothing short of a star. Great head on his shoulders with even better hair,” Lars laughed. The congregation obligated themselves a chuckle as well. 

“He was a hard man to love, but man did he love hard,” Matilda sucked her teeth, “My dad had his fair share of troubles, sure—but I-I mean who could blame one of the most famous men in the world for having a few demons?”

“I remember when he was real little and he’d sit on my lap during rehearsals. Before I knew it he had his own TV show and was making more money than my manager!” He roared into the mic. “The boy was truly my son down to the bone. An Apollo incarnate, talented beyond belief, and never without a little trouble behind him. My heir to the Blake name, he-uh…” Lars cleared his throat, “He was so much like his father…Maybe a little too much at times.” He stared at the mahogany casket in front of him.

Matilda fiddled with the napkin—tearing at its delicate corners, “I remember this one story he told me—back during the ‘98 world tour, about his time while in Japan.”

“My band and I—maybe you’ve heard of us—just got off our world tour,” Lars’s chuckle echoed off the empty walls. “On the last leg of the tour in Japan we went to this real fun bar where they have the chicks pour all the drinks into your mouth from their own—like uh-how mama birds feed their kids, you know?” 

The congregation, in fact, did not know.

“He saw some really cool places and met a lot of great people,” Matilda cleared her throat, “Tried a lot of new things over in Tokyo…”

“Then, uh, someone handed me some shit in a bag and I just popped it into my mouth—probably the least concerning thing I consumed that night,” Lars smiled to himself, though the rest of the congregation held their faces in a blank stare. “Got so fucked up I blacked out for a couple days. Apparently I tried to fight Dec while on stage—my bad,” he smacked his teeth, “When I finally woke up it was our last day in Tokyo and I was missing a tooth!”

“He told me that on their last day in Japan, he took himself on a walk—just to clear his head about some stuff,” she tucked a piece of scraggly blonde hair behind her ear, “Said that while walking he found this beautiful cherry blossom tree.”

“A-and not just any tooth, you know? My fucking front tooth—like the kind you lose when you’re eight,” he put a finger to his mouth and felt the hard white porcelain that had replaced his enamel, “Mouth was so full of blood I was shocked I didn’t choke on any of it while asleep. Then, then I-uh I saw what I woke up under—a giant fucking cherry blossom tree. Had pink-fucking-petals raining down on me like some friggin’ Studio Ghibli movie.”

Matilda straightened her back, “My dad told me it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.”

“Anyways, it was a cool ass tree,” Lars felt the heat of the lights burn him to a scorch, “But something in my gut told me I had to get out—leave Japan as soon as possible. I don’t know if it was God or the universe, or something else entirely, but as I stared at the tree I could feel a piece of me break off and wither away like the blossoms dying in winter.”

“He told me that right then and there was when he finally chose sobriety,” Matilda lied, “Said that the beauty of the cherry blossoms had reminded him of the beauty of life—the beauty of his children, his three—two, ahem—two beautiful children…” Something caught itself in her throat but she choked it back down. She accidentally made eye contact with Duke who then promptly turned his head away. From the side, his nose still looked a bit like Matilda’s. “He-uh,” daggers stabbed at the corners of her eyes, “It-uh, it took him a long while but he’d been officially clean since ‘07. And I mean like actually clean. Attended NA regularly and kept his therapist on speed dial. He didn’t even drink anymore. He was serious. Not like all the other times before. Not like back in the 90s when Aspen had found his…” She saw a body move from the crowd—it was Duke leaving his seat. “Ahem, anyways he really turned over a new leaf in the past twenty-ish years.”

Suddenly the doors slammed behind Duke as he left the chapel—no one went after him. Matilda ignored the echo of the slam.

“A-And I was uh, right about my gut feeling I guess…” Lars scratched the back of his head, “Some piece of me had withered off and died in that moment. A petal from my cherry blossom tree. My blood, my star, my son.” Something heavy hung in the back of his throat—though he knew it wasn’t vomit anymore. “My beautiful Aspen, gone.” He tried clearing his throat again, “He was too young, too promising…” Stars danced around his vision—not all of the pills and vodka had apparently come back up in the bathroom, “Too much like his father.”

“My dad was always there for me, and I for him. When he went on tour I waited by the phone for hours—ignoring time zones and waiting for him to call. I’d pray for the moment it’d ring, and I’d hear his voice. His beautiful damn voice. A voice like that only comes once in a lifetime. But I was the only one who got to hear it say my name. To hear it say ‘my Silly Tilly’ before that stupid song ever got written,” she scoffed. “Silly Tilly” topped the charts for months after 9/11. She was in New York for college and hadn’t seen him in months. 

“I know I’m not the greatest father in the world—no matter what a mug says,” Lars gathered his breath, “But I think I know how to love.”

Matilda looked out to see Duke’s spot in the pew still empty. Probably threw himself into the barricaded crowd—he didn’t know love unless it asked for an autograph.

There was a shake in her voice as she held back glassy eyes, “We’re in a church and I feel the pressure to say something honest,” she chuckled, “I-I maybe think I shouldn’t have loved him as much as I did…I think he was a great man but not a good man.” 

“I know I’m not a good man.”

The weight of the room contracted around Matilda’s lungs, “I don’t think anyone ever taught him how to love—only devote. He sunk his teeth into the skin of the world—like rigor mortis or a damn dog.”

“And I know I’ve got some shit inside of me that can’t help but self-destruct.”

“There was something inside of my dad that had made him into who he was. Some feral dog inside of him, some carnal desire to create, to do, to be more. A mouth full of blood but lungs filled with song.”

“And I fear it may be genetic…” He looked out to see Matilda’s beautiful tiny face. It was so innocent, so young. But it was scarred with the knowledge of who she was—who she could end up being like. 

“Lars Blake kissed his prey on the forehead before ripping out their throats,” the napkin crumpled between her palms, “Everything he loved was marred—a dog grabbing its pup by the nape. And I can only hope to have those same marks behind my neck…” She took a deep breath—pushing back the sting in her eyes. She would not cry here. The empty faces of the pews didn’t deserve that. 

She found her composure again, “Laurence Blake was a great musician, good husband, and a father.” Matilda didn’t dare look out into the pews, “He was also the voice of a generation and the Prince of Rock. There is no Cherry Pick without Lars Blake and there is no music without his voice. Lars Blake is quiet and now the whole world falls silent.” She paused, the empty faces stared back with empty eyes. No one had bothered to even fake a tear. “Thank you,” she said before stepping down from the podium and sitting in the front pew—staring down that mahogany casket.

TRACK FOUR: SILLY TILLY

When it was all over and everyone filed into the parking lot for the procession, Matilda took her time as she sunk into the leather seats of the red Corvette. In the rearview mirror, she could see the box of old cassette tapes still haunting the backseat. 

She reached back and grabbed one at random—“Silly Tilly ‘86” written in Sharpie over a strip of tape. It was from the original studio recordings of Cherry Pick’s first album. The producers must’ve decided to cut it before release. 

Matilda popped it into the old cassette player in the head unit. 

As she followed behind the hearse to the cemetery, the track clicked and began to play. The melody was the same, guitar strums and a steady drum beat. It was much slower than their usual stuff though it still had that classic Cherry Pick charm. 

When the beat finally ended and the last word was sung, she waited for the cassette to click, but instead, the analog hiss kept going. She was just about to pop it out of the player when she heard a familiar voice fill the speakers. 

“Daddy again!” A sweet little voice chirped. Matilda’s chest tightened. “Daddy sing!”

A man laughed, “Alrighty Tilly, I’ll sing it again, but only for you.”

Matilda would’ve recognized that voice anywhere. She stared ahead at the mahogany casket sitting in the back of the hearse—her knuckles turning white as they gripped the wheel. 

The voice chuckled again, “Only for you, Silly Tilly. Only for y—”

The tape finally clicked and went quiet. Matilda just sat there in silence all the way to the cemetery. Only the sound of Dad’s red Corvette beating against the concrete road could be heard. 

Apparently “Silly Tilly” had been written in ‘86 with the original debut album. But for whatever reason Dad had decided to stuff it away in the archives until ‘01. It wasn’t released until after 9/11—when Matilda was studying at NYU. 

“Silly Tilly” was released only a month after those towers fell. A month after Matilda sat in her dorm room and watched the smoke clouds cover the entire city—consuming it whole in a blanket of gray, she herself was only a mile or two away from Ground Zero. The song was released as a single—never put into any album or EP. 

For the past twenty-ish years Matilda couldn’t figure out why he had written and released that song. He hadn’t even bothered to call or visit her the entire time she’d been at college. But after hearing that original, unedited recording—those lyrics and laughter—she finally realized why Lars had released it when he did.

Because it only takes a single thought of loss to bring someone back to love. 

“But fuck me if I don’t love my kids,” Lars scoffed into the mic, “Drugs don’t have shit on hearing the laughter of your own flesh and blood. They are my stars, my sun, and my universe. They’re my everything and all.”