Gus

Gus had a heel of wall bread in one hand and a rolled blanket under the other arm when the drummer on the third container stopped mid-yawn and went quiet. It was noon on Container Row, which in Ramone Alley counted as early. The stacked boxes were only just waking: a bass line through one steel wall, somebody tuning through another, and at the bottom of the lane one amp humming on its own, glowing like it had been left on all night.

Someone held a door open as Gus passed, without being asked. Someone else leaned out and said, a little too casually, “Back corner’s yours tonight, if you want it.” Gus nodded and kept walking. The blanket was meant for the Squatter’s Loft, and the Loft could wait. The noise was down here.

The loudest of it was an Ape in a sleeveless jacket, dragging a speaker cabinet the size of a wardrobe to the edge of a top step. A setlist was taped to its back: three chords in marker, and a fourth line left blank in pencil.

“Tug,” the Ape said, without looking up. Then they did look up, and looked again. “Oh. You’re one of the ones who carried for the Pit.”

“Carried a few,” Gus said.

“Loud Minute’s Thursday. I need this in the Tin Room for rehearsal, and I need it not ringing when it lands. Every bump, it rings.” Tug patted the cabinet. “Nobody’s got it down those steps quiet. I don’t reckon anybody can.”

That was a dare, and Gus had never once in their life walked away from one. They put the bread down on the step.

A Raccoon in a patched coat appeared at their elbow, tearing a strip off a roll of orange tape. “For your sleeve,” they said. “Leander. Captain, sort of.” Gus wound it round their wrist like everyone else on the Row had, and bent to the cabinet.

It was heavier than any amp they remembered. The steps were narrow steel, two containers’ worth, slick where the morning had left them damp. Halfway down, the whole Row went still. Faces leaned out of doors. The drummer was standing up now. Gus could feel twenty years of Pit nights telling them to move fast, the way you did when a crowd was waiting and the band was late.

On the second-to-last step the cabinet tipped forward, and the speaker inside gave a low, warning buzz.

Gus stopped. They didn’t hurry and they didn’t swear. They let the weight settle against their chest, breathed, and waited until the buzz went quiet, with every eye on the Row on them. Then they took the last steps one at a time, slow as a Sunday, and set the cabinet down on the Tin Room’s little stage without a sound.

Somebody up top whistled. Tug came down the steps two at a time and checked the cabinet over, then checked Gus over, the same way.

“Rehearsal’s at four,” Tug said. “Bring your hands.”

It wasn’t a yes to the band. It wasn’t a no. Gus touched the folded setlist in their own pocket, soft at the folds, and found they were grinning anyway.

Out past the stage door the left-on amp was still humming, low and steady, its little light glowing orange.

“Whose is that one?” Gus asked.

“Someone’s,” said Tug, and went back up for the next load.