by Ed Briant
He sat down on top of the amp. “I’ve been trying to put together a band for a while,” he said. “And I want to play mostly Beatles stuff.”
“Good idea,” I said. “The songs are great. Everybody likes them.”
He spread his hands. “I don’t have a bass player yet. I mean, would you be interested?”
To be honest, my first thought was to say no, but then I thought back about what Katrina said about me not having any friends. I think I just wanted to prove her wrong. I nodded. “We could give it a go.”
“I think it’s going to be amazing.” Zack sprung up, and selected a telecaster from the wall. “This is what I have,” he said, then pointed at the p-bass on my knees. “You have your own axe, right?”
I was going to say yeah, sure, but Katrina came back to me again, with all that stuff about me being devious, so I said, “I have my brother’s p-bass. He’s in the Navy so he doesn’t use it.”
“Do you think he’s going to want it back?” said Zack.
“It’s not so much that,” I said. “It’s more like I don’t feel right about using his stuff while he’s away. I was trying to find one of my own.”
“Let’s do ‘Nowhere Man.’” Zack sat down opposite me, and plugged his guitar into the same amp. I counted us in. We played a couple of verses with me playing bass and Zack playing chords, and then he jumped in with the guitar solo. I’d never listened to it that carefully before, but Zack was playing it note-for-note exactly as it was on the record, and I realized right away that it was a difficult solo, and that Zack was a pretty good musician.
“That’s amazing,” I said. “You make it look so easy.”
“I mostly play along to records,” he said. “It’s the first time I’ve ever played it with someone else.” He pointed to my bass. “Is your brother’s bass as good as that?”
“I think it might be better, actually,” I said. “You know, I was wondering. Are all p-basses worth like ten thousand pounds?”
“No.” He reached over and peered at the swinging tag on the one I was playing, which I hadn’t noticed. “This one is only four hundred. I think the older they are the more valuable they are.”
“My brother’s p-bass is old,” I said.
“Could be worth something,” said Zack. “Are you thinking of selling it?”
“No way,” I said. “It’s not mine to sell. I was just thinking if it was valuable it ought to be insured.”
“Ask Harry,” said Zack. “He can tell you how much it’s worth in an instant.”
“Is that Harry downstairs?” I said.
“Yeah. Harry Haller,” said Zack. “It’s his shop. He’s a great guy.”
“My ears are burning.”
We both turned to face Harry Haller, who was once again at the top of the stairs.
“That sounded very nice,” he said, “but I’m afraid I have to kick you out. My wife has dinner on the table, and she does not care for cold food when it is supposed to be hot.”
“Thank you for letting me play, Mr. Haller.” I handed him back the bass. “Sorry about the other bass.”
“You can call me Harry.” He hooked it back in its slot and turned to me. “You’re welcome to play any instrument in the store, but please ask me first before you take down any of the old Gibsons and Fenders.”
“My brother has a p-bass,” I said. “I think it’s pretty old. I was wondering how much it was worth. I mean, I should get it insured if it’s valuable.”
He grinned at me. “What is your name, my friend?”
“Toby.”
“I could take a quick look, Toby, and give you a ballpark figure,” he said. “I charge twenty pounds to do a full evaluation, and if it’s an old precision bass, then you should do that. You will need to get it properly insured, and an insurance company will honor my evaluation.”
“But the most it could be worth is about ten thousand,” I said.
Harry Haller laughed, and pointed to the one I’d played earlier. “This one is just the most valuable instrument I have played. A couple of months ago a precision bass was sold in New York for a hundred thousand dollars.”
“Yikes,” said Zack.
“And the prices are still going up,” said Harry. “The p-bass you were playing is ten years old. It’s just a second-hand bass, not worth as much as a new one. The bass I rescued from you is about thirty years old. You know how much that one is worth. The p-bass that sold for a hundred thousand dollars was nearly sixty years old.”
“Wow.”
“Does your brother’s bass have a solid case?” said Harry.
“No, just a gig bag. A soft case,” I said.
“Follow me.” Harry led us downstairs. He rooted around behind the counter and produced something that looked like a black coffin. “Here. Take this,” he said. “It’s a precision case. It’s old. It’s solid, and it’s very heavy, but it will protect your bass in all but the worst accidents, and you look pretty strong.”
“I don’t have any money on me,” I said.
“Take it,” said Harry. “Bring it back if you buy a better one. It’s just taking up space here.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“What did I tell you?” said Zack. “A really decent bloke.”
10
Friday
Horoscope: April 16, Aquarius:
You are feeling especially attractive today.
The voices that whisper softly in your ear are the ones you will hear loudest. Relax and tune in to your body’s natural rhythms.
Up in Shawn’s room we plow straight through every Beatles song we know.
“Ticket to Ride” goes off without a hitch. I stay focused from the opening riff to the final chord, but “Can’t Buy Me Love” is a different matter. At some point around the second chorus, my mind wanders and I find myself on a sunny evening leaning against the Memento Park statue. Michelle appears in the distance. My heart quickens and I push myself away from the statue, dust off my clothes, and push my hair behind my ears. But as Michelle gets closer, I can tell she’s just a little too tall to be Michelle. She passes a few yards away from me and I wonder how I ever thought she was Michelle. When the song ends I’m jerked back to the reality of Shawn’s room.
The next three songs, “Tell Me Why,” “Get Back,” and “I Should Have Known Better,” also go smoothly; then we get to “Revolution.” Once again, the song begins with me on full alert, and then I’m back at the statue. Once again, I spy Michelle in the distance, but this time as she approaches, she’s heavier than the real Michelle.
I almost get through “Eight Days a Week” before I’m back at the statue again. In this scenario, I get there late and Michelle is waiting for me wearing a pink dress. She’s facing away from me and she looks like she’s gained a little weight since the Aquarium.
“Hi,” I say. “Michelle!”
Slowly she turns. It’s not Michelle at all but Jasper Hamilton-Sinclair in makeup.
This spooks me so much that when we play the last two songs, “Day Tripper” and “Lady Madonna,” my mind doesn’t wander even once. Maybe that’s the secret. Terror focuses the mind.
Zack doesn’t seem to notice any of my lapses of concentration, and when we reach the end of “Lady Madonna” we both slump back onto Shawn’s bed.
“We have a set,” says Zack. “We actually have a set. Except I think we need to switch ‘Day Tripper’ with ‘Lady Madonna.’”
“You think we should play more?” I say.
“No. I think we’re good. I don’t think we should try to overdo it.” Zack drags his jacket onto his knees. “More to the point, I’ve got a treat for us. Special from Harry.” He pulls a paper bag out of his pocket and holds it up proudly. “New strings for both of us.”
“Man. That’s about twent
y quid’s worth of strings,” I say.
Zack pulls two packs from the paper bag. One set of guitar strings for him, and one set of bass strings for me. He tosses the bass strings over to me.
Zack props his guitar between his knees and begins slacking off his old low-E. The guitar makes a deep twanging sound. He takes out the new string, which is coiled into an “O.” He unravels it and with well-practiced moves, he fits one end to the bridge, draws the other end up the neck to the machine head, then lets out a long sigh.
“Listen,” he says. “Please don’t flip out, but I told my old man about the bass.”
“Why on earth did you do that?” I have the first new string out of the pack, but instead of uncoiling it out of its “O” shape I spin it around my first finger.
“Well, you know, he deals with insurance claims.” Zack already has his second string fastened to the machine head, and is starting on the third. His guitar looks ten years younger already. “He knows the legal ins and outs, and I don’t want you thinking you’ve got to give the bass back.” Zack lets go of the string he’s working on, and it flicks back with a twang.
“So?” I use the pointed tip of the new string to clean my thumbnail. “What did he say?”
“No. You don’t have to give it back.” Zack threads the fourth string into its slot. “It would help if Shawn had a receipt, but it’s not essential. I was right about the time limit. There’s a statute of limitations. If the bass has been in your possession for more than a certain amount of time, then it’s technically yours.” He studies me like I’m some weird cloud formation on the horizon. “But he told me something else.”
“There’s always something else, right?” I say.
Zack’s new strings gleams in contrast to the old ones, which have almost turned black.
“He thinks that Shawn probably did steal it,” says Zack.
I watch Zack in silence as he coils the old, corroded strings around his fist, then I let out a long breath.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” says Zack, as he pulls the fifth string out of its wallet. “Are you really pissed off at me?”
I reel in the bass string like a fishing line and shake my head. “Mom knew,” I say, “and she didn’t tell me. She said Shawn had some iffy friends.” I think about Shawn bringing all the stuff in late at night. He was always coming home with something, and it was always late at night. Why do I have to be the last to know?
“From what my old man told me that’s a generous assessment,” says Zack. “I mean, I love Shawn. Everyone does. He’s a great guy, but he was a criminal.” Zack’s guitar is now fully rigged with shimmering new strings.
“But how come people liked him if he was a thief?” I say. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“He was Robin Hood.” Zack tosses the first of the old strings across the room into the wastebasket. “A lot of thieves steal from people who are actually quite close to them. Shawn wasn’t like that. He stole from businesses.” Zack throws the second and third strings at the wastebasket, but they miss and bounce into the corner. “It was actually what made him popular. Not only did everyone love to see him sticking it to rich people, he virtually gave away everything he stole for ridiculously low prices. If you wanted something, you asked Shawn.” Zack retrieves the strings from the corner, and places them into the bin. “And he still made money. That was why he ended up as a tar.” A drop of blood appears on the tip of Zack’s index finger. One of the strings must have cut him. He places his finger in his mouth and sucks it. “The police were on to Shawn. Things began to get uncomfortable. What better place than 5,000 miles away from the people who want to see you in the slammer?”
“You’re telling me he joined the Navy to get away from the police?” I say.
“In a nutshell,” says Zack.
“So none of this stuff is really his?” I use the new string to point to all the band equipment scattered in loose piles around the room.
Zack shakes his head. “Probably not.”
“Do you think he stole the bass from Harry’s?” I say.
“Nah,” says Zack. “He wouldn’t steal from Harry. He didn’t steal from people he cared about.”
“I think he did steal from ordinary people,” I say. I rest the bass on the floor, and put the strings on top of it. “I don’t think he was a Robin Hood at all.”
This news wipes the smile off Zack’s face. “What makes you say that?”
I walk over to Shawn’s nightstand. I open the top drawer. I fumble around until I find what I’m looking for, then toss the wallets onto Zack’s lap. “I thought he had a wallet collection,” I say. “I thought it was something he had a thing for. I was half right. He did like collecting wallets. Other people’s wallets.”
Zack picks up the wallets one by one. Now it’s his turn to look astonished. He shakes his head. “Well, bugger me backward,” he says under his breath. I open the second drawer down. Inside are more wallets, some cell phones, keys, dozens of keys on rings and tags, and watches. There are about twenty or more watches. They’re mostly cheap digital ones, but one or two are fancier-looking.
“I had no idea,” says Zack. “I had no clue to the real Shawn.”
“Yeah, well that makes two of us,” I say as I hold up one of the watches.
Meanwhile, one particular wallet seems to have caught Zack’s attention. It’s a slender brown leather one. “I lost my wallet a couple of years ago. I thought I’d put it down and lost it. Only had a few quid in it, but I really liked it. I think this is it.”
I put the watches back in the drawer. “Then there’s this,” I say. I take out the note again. “The bass belonged to a girl,” I say. “I mean look at the little hearts over the I’s. Grown women don’t do that.”
Zack takes the note, but doesn’t read it. “Whatever happened has happened, and the deed has been done. You can’t undo what’s been done.”
He returns the note to me. I fold it up again and put it back in my wallet.
“You’re not going to go to Brunswick and just give the bass back, are you?” Zack rests his guitar across his knees and strums the riff from “Ticket to Ride.”
I shake my head.
“I’m glad to hear it.” He stops playing and makes some adjustments to the tuning. “It’s a heartrending note, but you can’t do it. It just won’t work.” He starts playing “Ticket to Ride” again. “I feel really bad for this girl, Julie, but I’d feel worse for you and Shawn if you actually went through with it. You can’t un-steal something that was stolen, especially if it was stolen two or three years ago.”
“I don’t think there is a Julie McGuire.” I pick up the bass, and try to get myself into tune with Zack. “Or maybe there is, but she didn’t write the note. I think it’s some kind of scam.”
“Wow,” says Zack. “You changed your tune. What brought that on?”
I draw in a long breath. “I rang the number.”
“Oh man! Toby,” says Zack. “What did she say?”
“It was a guy,” I say. “A really weird guy.”
Zack begins “Ticket to Ride” yet again, and this time I follow along with the bass part.
“It’s sounding really good,” says Zack. “How much did you tell this bloke?”
“Virtually nothing,” I say.
“Thank God for that,” says Zack. “Just don’t call him again.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t need to tell him anything,” I say. “All I did was ask him if Julie McGuire was there and right away he knew exactly why I was calling. It almost felt like he could see me through the phone.”
“Don’t stress about it, mate.” Zack pats me on the shoulder. “Just let sleeping dogs lie.”
11
Saturday
Horoscope: April 17, Aquarius:
You will wake
up feeling especially confident today. Your decisiveness and self-assurance will lift the spirits of everyone around you.
By the time Saturday rolls around I think I’ve probably imagined every conceivable scenario involving Michelle, Memento Park, and myself. Some of them I’ve imagined so many time it’s like watching endless reruns on TV.
I play through some of them as I’m down on the bedroom floor doing my push-ups.
The leading contender is the one where I show up and Michelle doesn’t. End of story.
By this time, another old favorite is the one where she shows up, but she’s brought along her friend from the other day. Not the end of the story; just the start of one that’s not terribly interesting.
I’ve only once envisioned the scenario where Michelle shows up, and she’s holding hands with Jasper Hamilton-Sinclair. But once was more than enough.
I’ve even been imagining the scenario in my sleep, like the dream I had on Friday night when I showed up, and Michelle showed up, but it turned out I wasn’t wearing any trousers.
I head down to the kitchen, put the kettle on for tea, and find myself lying on the floor while I wait for it to boil.
Not to pray, even though that might be an avenue worth exploring, but doing extra push-ups in a last-minute attempt to turn myself into somebody more impressive before I head off to the park.
Then, as I’m struggling to push myself up off the floor for about the fifteenth time, I imagine a brand-new scenario.
In this one, it’s me who doesn’t show up.
It’s simple. It’s brilliant. And I have no idea why didn’t I think of it before.
I roll over and sit with my legs crossed as a Zen-like calmness washes over me.
This infuses my entire being until I get to my feet to finish making tea, and bang my head on the kitchen table.
I watch some old cartoons on TV.
I write an essay about sharks; quite a good one actually. I get within a couple of chapters of the end of Fahrenheit 451.
I practice few songs. I strum through “Lady Madonna,” but when I reach the line where it says Sunday morning creeps like a nun, I have another realization.