Struts & Frets (26 page)

“Did you hear the way your bass sounded with that amp?” asked TJ. “Incredible.”

“I know, right?” I said. “You could, like, feel it in your stomach it was so intense.”

“Yeah,” said Rick. “That kit is awesome too.”

“That's what happens when you can afford to spend a little money on decent heads,” agreed TJ. “Playing it felt great.”

“Are you guys glad I thought of this or what?” asked Joe.

The three of us just kind of smiled at him for a moment, because it was a weird thing to say. But he was right. This had been his idea from the start.

“Totally,” I said. “You were so right.”

There was a stage monitor hooked up in the office so we could hear the other bands play during the competition. At first, all we could hear was the stagehands setting things up. Then the sounds of an audience began to filter through the monitor. At first it was just a low mumble of voices, but it kept growing louder, filling up until it was more like a constant buzzing, as maybe a thousand people talked and laughed at once. We'd already had our sound check, and listening to that audience was our reality check. We were still smiling, but there was a tension to it. And we weren't talking as much.

And then the announcer must have come onstage because the cheers over the monitor rattled the speaker cone.

“Hey, hey, hey!” he yelled into a mic dripping with reverb. “Are you people ready to pick Columbus's best band?”

SCREAM!

“Well, KLMN 103.1 wants—no, they
need
—their faithful listeners to find them a diamond in the rough! They're begging you! Pleading with you!”

“Could this guy be any more cheesy?” Joe groaned.

“Find the next big thing!” continued the announcer.

SCREAM!

“Ten bands, all born and bred right here in this town.”

“Sammy, weren't you born in Cleveland?” Rick asked with a nervous grin. “Uh-oh, I hope that doesn't disqualify us.”

The announcer continued: “They're young, they're hopeful, and one of them is going to get serious radio play!”

SCREAM!

“Here's what happens. There's going to be three rounds. In the first, they'll each play one song, and you'll pick the top three by cheering as loud as you can for the one you like. And I mean loud and long and out of control. Let us hear it!”

SCREAM!

“Then, the next two rounds will eliminate one band each round until we have our new big thing!”

SCREAM!

“Are you ready?”

SCREAM!

“Then let's hear it for our first band, Cog!”

There was a lot of feedback and general noise at first, but then a pounding, grindcore sound emerged and the band kicked in. It was total speed metal. Not my thing at all, but I had to admit that they were really tight. And like all thrash songs, it was short. It ended crisp and clean like an Olympic diver entering the water.

“Yikes,” muttered Rick.

The announcer said, “Let's hear it for Cog!”

SCREAM!

“And now our next band, Casanova Trio!”

SCREAM!

“Oh, God,” said Joe. “Poser emo crap.”

But it was worse than that. It was cheesy Britpop. It was Wallflowers meets Morrissey.

There was a knock on the door.

“You're next,” said a gruff voice.

“We'll sound amazing compared to these pussies,” said Joe.

We opened the door and trooped up the dark, narrow stairwell. At the top we entered into the wings. We could see Casanova Trio out onstage, looking just as sad and lame as we had imagined they would.

We could also see the audience.

It's easy to say “one thousand people.” But it's not easy to look at them all at once. I got through an audience of fifty at the open mic, but you didn't have to count to see the difference. It was a wall of eyes, all of them about to turn toward us in a few moments. Sick dread flushed through my stomach and my hands were suddenly shaking.

“I think I'm going to throw up,” TJ said.

“Shut up,” said Joe.

That didn't help at all and TJ sprinted back down the stairs to the bathroom. He came back up a minute later, a little pale but looking much happier.

“You guys should try that,” he said. “Seriously.”

But even if any of us wanted to, we couldn't. The song ended and we could hear the announcer say, “Let's hear it for Casanova Trio!”

SCREAM!

“And now, show the love for Tragedy of Wisdom!”

SCREAM!

My first thought was,
God, I still hate that name
. But then it was time to walk onstage and that thought evaporated. In fact, all thought evaporated. My stomach totally bottomed out and it was the same feeling as at the open mic. Walking across that stage to my spot seemed like it took forever. My
body was so stiff, I felt like Frankenstein's monster. When I got to the right place, just picking up the cord and plugging in my guitar seemed like a huge undertaking. How the hell was I going to play? Then I looked out at the audience—all those faces, all that noise—and for a split second I froze completely. My eyes couldn't hold what I was looking at. My brain was blowing fuses all over the place. If there had been an EKG monitor hooked up to my heart, all you would have heard was
beeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

But I heard the click of TJ's sticks counting us in and even though my head was still on ice, my body knew exactly what to do and started without the rest of me. We were halfway through the first verse before I even realized we were playing.

And it was going brilliantly. We were on. The music pounded through me and I just let it come, let it blast out into the open air. We filled that vast space. Filled it with the music that we had created. I felt like I was ripping open my chest to the audience, showing them everything I had inside. I felt like they knew me, understood me, each and every one of them, and I had nothing to hide. I felt drunk and amazed. This was why I did it. This was why it was all worth it. This was better than anything.

Then we hit the bridge. That's when Joe forgot his lyrics. He kept singing, but he was saying nonsense words. Scatting
like some sort of punk rock Ella Fitzgerald, except badly. I looked over at him and I could tell he was getting upset. But maybe we could make it through, get back to a chorus, something he knew, and maybe no one would notice. I glanced over at TJ and Rick, though, and the looks they were giving Joe would have definitely alerted anyone paying attention that things were not going as planned.

And that was when the bass line went somewhere else. Rick seemed so amazed at Joe's scatting routine that he hadn't even realized he'd switched to the wrong song. But Joe noticed. I guess he was glad there was someone else to blame besides himself because he stopped scatting and started talking: “That's our crappy bassist, Rick!” he called to the crowd, mimicking the announcer's cheesy voice. “Never knows what song he's playing! And I always thought fags were supposed to be
good
at music! And while I'm at it, I might as well introduce the rest of the band. TJ, our pussy drummer! He stole my girl with his nice-guy act but was too much of a wimp to tell me! Let's here it for pussy drummers!”

There were a thousand people watching us. Some of them where kind of laughing but a lot of them looked like they didn't know what the hell was going on. All I could think was: Just finish the damn song. Just get to the end and it'll all be over.

“And that, of course, is our guitarist and songwriter, Sammy,” said Joe. “And I have to say that this kid has had a rough life. I mean, his mom is so hot that even with twenty staples in her head she gave me a boner. Who knows? Now that I'm single and she's single, hell, maybe I could be Sammy's new daddy!”

That was the moment I stopped playing and threw my guitar at him.

It missed, of course. Guitars aren't very good projectile weapons. It hit the floor and the neck cracked. That sound faded to complete silence. No music, no Joe, no announcer, no audience. My footsteps echoed as I picked up my broken '61 Gibson SG reissue and walked off the stage, through the wings, down the stairwell, out the exit, through the parking lot, and to the Boat.

And I just started driving.

fact, I don't think I was even paying attention as I drove. But I ended up at Gramps's place. If anyone would understand what I was feeling right then, it was him. But of course he wasn't there. He was in a psych ward, probably never to be released. Because he wasn't going to get better.

Shit.

I sat there in the car and stared at the front lawn of the apartment building. It wasn't very big. Just a little patch of grass spotted with a few dandelions. Less than two weeks ago, Gramps and I sat out there, talking about Chet Baker and the moon. Less than two days ago, he nearly beat my mother to death in probably about the same spot.

I looked down in the passenger seat at the pieces of my
precious '61 Gibson SG reissue. I was mad at Joe for making us all look like complete assholes, but I was just as mad at myself for the way I reacted. It made absolutely no sense to me that my retaliation against him was to break one of the only material objects I cared about. It had just been stupid, meathead rage. Throw whatever was in my hands at the guy. It didn't look fixable, and there was no way I could afford a new one.

Maybe this was a sign. Here I was, no guitar, no band. Maybe I should just forget the whole thing and become a math geek or something. Maybe then I wouldn't be such a angsty little tool. Maybe then I wouldn't go crazy like Gramps. What did he know, anyway? Reach for the moon . . . He was probably already crazy when he said that. Just babbling.

I looked up at the moon. I could see it between the rooftops, big and fat and kind of an orange color. Maybe the craters lined up differently that night, or maybe it was the mood I was in, but I swear I could almost see the man in the moon. But he didn't look like some wise old man, like Gramps said. He didn't look kindly or jolly or any of that. He looked sad and tired, his mouth hanging open like he was a split second away from crying. Maybe he'd looked happier before Neil Armstrong stepped on his face. Or maybe he'd gotten depressed because he had to stare down at us all the time.

Or maybe I was just looking at it wrong. Maybe what
Ms. Jansen had said was right. Things happened that you couldn't control. But you could always choose how you dealt with them.

This was the “shit pile,” after all. The stuff that Gramps said was a musician's job to make beautiful. I didn't know if I really touched the moon like Gramps said, but I felt
something
at that open mic. I had taken all my fear and all Jen5's stress, and I had turned it into something that maybe made everybody's night just a little better. And even tonight, when we first started to play, it was something really amazing. Something that was more than just Sammy Bojar.

I couldn't stop playing music. Even if I knew I would never be famous. Even if I had to work at a coffee shop and play a friggin' cigar box strung with wire, I'd still play music. Because I knew I wanted that feeling again. I'd do just about anything to get it.

I was doomed, maybe. But by choice.

I wasn't ready to tell my mom what had happened yet, so I drove over to Jen5's house. I had been sitting in my car for a while in front of Gramps's, so I hoped she'd aleady be home from the concert. But when I knocked on the door, Mr. Russell answered.

“Sorry it's so late, Mr. Russell,” I said. “Is Jennifer around?”

One of his bushy white eyebrows slowly raised.

“No, she isn't here. I thought she was with you.”

“Yeah . . . I left early.”

“Would you like to come in?” he asked suddenly.

“Oh, uh . . .” I couldn't think of a polite way to say no, so I nodded. “Sure, thanks.”

“You had some sort of music contest this evening, didn't you?” he asked as we walked to his study.