She Wouldn't Say Goodbye. (Guns N' Roses)

Thirty Five

-Slash-

I had my leather guitar case firm in hand as I located the address. There were a few run-down apartments on the corner, a few slum house everything was pretty packed together. Creating small alleyways between the buildings, I walked down an alley on the left, seeing a door. The guy I recognized as 'Axl' standing at the door smoking a cigarette.

"Hey, man, glad you could make it." He greeted, stepping out of the shadows. Man, this place was a shit hole. Axl threw his cigarette down the small alley, "Come on in." I followed the red-headed singer into this fucking shack. The place was as trashed inside. Dirty laundry on the floor, beer, soda and liquor bottles on the floor. Everything on the floor.

There was the guitarist I recognized as 'Izzy' sitting on an amp in the corner, brooding and smoking a Marlboro red.

Izzy raised an eyebrow when I walked in the door. Like he didn't know what I was doing there. "Do you want anything?" Axl asked, reaching down into a small refrigerator. "Sure, do you have any beer?" "Yeah, we got PBR or Bud light?" "Eh, man, I'm not picky." Axl nodded, pulling two Bud lights out of the fridge.

Izzy stood up flicking the ashes from his cigarette on the floor. "So, are we like playing, or?" He questioned, taking a drag off his cig. "That was the idea if you wanna plug in," Axl said, twirling the cord to a microphone around a mic stand. Izzy didn't reply instead he started pulling his amp out and getting ready to play.

I cracked open my beer, drinking some down before pulling my guitar out of the case. "Here's another guitar amp you can use, you're more than welcome to change the tone and shit," Axl said, motioning towards an old Marshall. I started playing around with the tones and sound I could create with the old thing. I had heard some of their demo tapes, Axl and I had decided over the phone we would try to play some of the material. I had learned Shadow of your Love, Reckless Life and Killing Time.

"Are you guys ready to play?" Axl questioned, making sure his mic was working. "Yeah, I am," I spoke looking towards Izzy. "Let's start with Reckless Life, I guess and then we'll see from there." "Sounds great to me." We started the intro to the song, Axl's voice loud and blaring in the small run down space. Izzy standing next to his amp. I played along to the song as I remembered it to be, but I made sure to make it sound like something I'd play. We did a couple run throughs of that song, changing a few things about the intro and chorus'.

Axl and I were pretty in sync, jamming out the song as Izzy kind of hung back. We got through the song completely for about the second time.

"I thought that was great." I grinned, taking another swig of my beer. "Yeah, I agree. Do you wanna play another one?" Axl asked, drinking from his own can.

"Sure, let's do that one. Uh, Shadow of Your Love." I said, sitting my beer down on the coffee table. Axl sat his down too, picking up his mic. We then went into the intro of the song. Again everything sounding pretty good with me doing leads, and Izzy playing rhythm

We got halfway through the song when I heard the rhythm guitar drop out. I glanced over from the neck of my guitar, to see Izzy grabbing his cigarettes and walking out of the door. He ha just turned all of his shit off. He completely bailed. Axl didn't notice until a stream of light came in through the open door, disappearing again as Izzy shut it. Axl and I glanced at each other, not sure what had happened if we had pissed Izzy off or something. We just kept playing.