by Mark All
“Are you taking testosterone?”
“So not funny, Jessie.”
He wasn’t smiling and she sensed he couldn’t be budged. Not yet. Hopefully, after another day of the song spreading like wildfire in a drought, he would come through for her. For Penumbra.
“Okay, Ben,” she said getting up. “I’m staying on top of this, though. We don’t have anybody else with this kind of potential. We’ll get enough clicks to assuage your doubts.”
“Yeah,” he said pensively. “I know we need this. Convince me. Overwhelm me. Then we’ll talk.”
Jessica was even more fired up than before. She was going to Tweet and Tumblr her ass off, prod her family and everybody she knew to do the same, and launch an all-out assault on Facebook and Google+.
On her way back to her desk, she tried to catch Charlene’s eye, but the blonde was uncharacteristically hunched over her desk. As Jessica passed, she saw her friend’s computer screen, which showed not a spreadsheet, but her media player, and she had a pretty good idea what Charlene was listening to. As the progress bar reached the end of the song, it started over.
* * * *
Alan Dillehay sat glassy-eyed on the couch beside Nancy, oblivious to the outside world, his soul adrift in an internal audio landscape. The gentle contact between their lightly clasped hands connected him to her on a spiritual level, as if they were one in the shared experience. Yet he sensed a slight distance between them. At an inadvertent tug on his fingers, he came back to reality long enough to see her scrolling on her laptop with her free hand.
When they’d gotten home from David’s, Alan had called Donny, his crew leader, who was already on his way to the job in Watkinsville, and told him he was in charge for the day. Alan had expected to crash immediately, had planned to fall onto the bed with his clothes on and sleep all day, but he was too full of energy to sleep, exhausted yet jittery, as if he’d chugged a pot of Starbuck’s after staying up all night. So he’d slumped on the couch and lit a joint.
Nancy had snatched it from him and taken a long toke, then made her way to the desktop computer on the roll-top desk where they paid bills, wavering slightly on her feet. Alan had it connected to the TV’s surround sound system, so after she’d inserted a flash drive and hovered over the keyboard for a minute, “Fire It Up” blasted out of the speakers around the perimeter of the room. It wasn’t mixed for 5.1, but it sounded damn fine.
“I thought you didn’t like that song,” he'd said as she joined him on the sofa.
She had looked tiredly thoughtful. “I fucking hate it, but it grows on you.”
“It is compelling.”
“That’s what worries me.” She had come back to the couch, perched on the edge, and furrowed her brow. After another toke, she’d given the joint back to him, plopped the laptop on her thighs, and taken his hand.
Now she began typing, but not enough to distract him from the song any longer. He closed his eyes and slipped into a dream world choreographed by Penumbra, floating, deeply aware of her presence yet immersed in the music, and there they stayed as a bar of sunlight from the partially open blinds advanced across the floor, the song playing over and over.
* * * *
Thursday afternoon
Nodding in time to the blasting stereo shaking his makeshift garage “office,” Wesley Lambert snapped the clip into his Glock and lovingly wiped a spot of oil from the barrel. Cleaning his guns soothed his restless soul, focused his mind, and this new music gave it something to focus on. His ritual was like meditation; he always emerged refreshed from it, often posting on his blog right away, ideas welling up from the sea of his unconscious.
His posts were sometimes lofty, panoramic visions of a better world, more often critiques of the elitist wealth redistributors who took his hard earned money and gave it to shiftless losers and squandered it on research into the mating habits of cloned sheep. His was an important voice to be heard, but where did it lead? At some point people had to get up off their duffs and do something about it, didn’t they?
This crazy music was giving him ideas. Not directly; it mostly gave him a feeling, but at the same time it coaxed his own deepest emotions up to the surface, and urged him to act on them. It made him feel powerful, strong, and gave him even more certitude in his convictions. This country needed discipline. The pathetic whiners needed a good, swift kick in the balls. His anger surged the more he thought about it.
Wesley usually listened to country music when he listened to music at all. On his job driving from one to another of those fancy corporate campuses, picking up “sensitive” documents by the truckload to shred, he kept the station on talk radio. Those guys told the truth, although they didn’t have the panache he did in his effusive blogs. He’d always hated heavy metal, but this song curiously struck a chord deep within him, resonating with him in a way music never had before. It clarified his mind and made him more himself.
He was coming up with more concrete suggestions to put out into the world today. It was all well and good to urge people to vote their conscience, good for them as well as for him—because someday Wesley was going to win the lottery, and he’d be damned if he’d let the federal government take ninety percent of his winnings in taxes. Voting wasn’t enough, however. Sometimes direct action was needed.
Sometimes you just had to let your rage overflow.
Wesley slid the Glock into the soft, snug holster and opened his blog.
* * * *
Thursday evening
Charlene Hanscomb didn’t remember driving home from work. Sometimes when she became lost in thought or a song on her car’s satellite radio, she snapped back to reality hoping those last three lights she’d spaced out through hadn’t been red, but tonight she’d blotted out the entire trip. She’d left late, having been unaccountably slow getting her work done. She’d finally turned in her weekly status report two hours late, downloaded “Fire It Up” to her phone, and drifted out of the office. She next found herself standing in her living room, keys dangling from her hand, her bag dumped beside her on the floor.
The song reached the end and began to repeat. She knew what would make this song even more amazing. Pot. If only she had some weed, she could enter the magic, alternate universe of sound, where she became the music, the sweet space she never wanted to leave. Only, she didn’t have any pot. Shit.
Wine would have to do then. Everything went well with wine. She dropped her keys on the carpet, the only sound in her head being the music of Penumbra, and floated to the kitchen. She found the nearly full bottle of white Zinfandel in the fridge, snagged a glass, and went to the couch. Ensconced comfortably, a big cushion on her lap and her cell on top of it like a tiara, tethered to it by her ear buds, Charlene poured a glass of wine, took a sip, closed her eyes, and slipped off into a strange, terrifying, compelling landscape of sound.
* * * *
Thursday night
Sitting in his living room, David frowned. After the others had left that morning, he’d slept for five hours, gone to the store to teach a couple of lessons, then worked in the studio the rest of the day. By the time he trudged upstairs, got a beer, and dropped into the chair, empty as a wrung out sponge, he’d finished mixing and mastering the entire album. This was a good thing, because he wasn’t in his twenties anymore and he couldn’t keep up this kind of pace indefinitely. He hadn’t worked this obsessively, this single-mindedly, on a project ever before.
He did verge on obsessive-compulsive disorder, as did most accomplished musicians, or so he suspected. What sane person would spend a significant portion of their waking lives alone in a room practicing repetitiously until they mastered the possibilities of their instrument to the point of virtuosity? David had done that, from a young age, spending all his after-school time relentlessly working on his guitar skills and repertoire while other kids played outside his window. Not even the incessant bouncing of a basketball had distracted him from the beat of his metronome, and later, drum machine and jam trac
ks.
He definitely had a tendency to obsess—but these marathon recording sessions were beyond any experience he’d ever had. Doing an entire album this technically demanding in a week, even though the basic tracks were written and recorded before they came to the band, was unbelievable. What they had done wasn’t impossible—some historic albums had been churned out pretty quickly—but Penumbra had never worked this fast before.
Still, that much he could accept. What was really bothering him was the fact that he was not exhausted. People his age couldn’t just work without eating for days at a stretch. He knew from experience that he should’ve been brain dead. He had been pretty stupid after the three days he’d initially spent on this project, and bone weary, but he’d bounced back the next day. Now, after an all-nighter and then mixing and mastering an entire album, he shouldn’t have been able to add two and two.
Yet here he sat, exhilarated and exuberant about the idea of getting Oblivion out there. Sharing it with people. Playing it live.
Having a career again, too. The wreck had not only ended the band, it had taken David’s collaborator away, putting the burden of being the main songwriter onto him since the others had only come up with a song or two each. They had mostly written and arranged their own parts for the songs composed by David and Vince—mostly Vince. David had been devastated by the trauma, the loss and grief, and, selfishly, being sort of orphaned in his job. He hadn’t thought he was up to it, and now admitted to himself that he’d been afraid to try.
So, certainly, he had reason to be excited about the project and the band’s abrupt and unforeseen return to relevance. About finding meaning in his life again. To feel self-worth for the first time in a year.
Still, the degree of intensity of his need to get this album released was unnatural.
Whatever. H
e had to do something, had to get moving, or what was his point in life? David drained the beer and carried the CD he’d burned of the album to his living room system. After listening to it here, he’d go test it in his car stereo—but he knew the mix was good.
Oblivion was ready and waiting for the world.
Chapter Twenty-One
Friday morning
Jessica nervously shifted the phone from one ear to the other, drumming her fingers on her desk in time to the REM tune playing while she was on hold with the Athens Theater, overflowing with excitement and energy.
Penumbra’s single had broken every record for clicks and downloads, not only on Sage’s site, but on all the sites where they knew it was up—and they were pretty sure it was on more pirate sites they weren’t aware of. Jessica’s boss seemed to be thoroughly overwhelmed and convinced. Ben Westfeldt was not thrilled about giving the pirates a free ride, and still nervous about lawsuits due to increasing reports of Loopers getting fired and even becoming violent when they couldn't satisfy their audio cravings in public places. A SWAT team had been called in when a wacko in Minnesota barricaded himself in a Lutheran church, put the song on the public broadcast system used to play recorded church bells and organ hymns Sunday mornings, and took pot shots at anyone coming near the building. The standoff had fortunately ended without bloodshed, but it had unaccountably taken an hour after the arrest before the music stopped blasting through the neighborhood. Spontaneous “Occupy Penumbra” demonstrations had broken out in parks in New York and Los Angeles. There was even a YouTube clip of a fourteen-year-old Korean virtuoso playing the guitar parts note-for-note to a recording of “Fire It Up.”
On the other hand, Ben couldn’t deny they’d created a worldwide sensation, and the board of directors would consider him criminally negligent to let this opportunity slip through their fingers. He’d already gotten two calls from board members counseling him to sign Penumbra up if he valued his job.
So he’d handed Jessica a contract for the band as soon as she got to work, along with release forms for any band members who wouldn’t play ball. The agreement included stingy but adequate funding for a tour to support the album, and if they could cut costs by replacing recalcitrant musicians with a computer, so much the better.
David Fairburn had said that the bass player quit and threatened legal action. Ben felt that Jessica, being quite a head-turner and a real people person, especially with musicians, because she really got them, could talk the guy into signing. If not, Sage could muster a platoon of lawyers that would run roughshod over any local yokel attorney John Emory could afford. They just had to nail it down before the bassist got a clue how big a sensation Penumbra was becoming and how much money was at stake. Ben had no problem paying the guy his fair share, but he couldn’t have the jerk suing to stop production and distribution, holding their balls to the fire because the album offended some weird set of scruples he had or wounded his emotions.
They could’ve faxed the contract to David, but Jessica wanted some face time with her new band, and her personal touch could be instrumental in getting any needed releases signed, maybe even talking John Emory into staying with Penumbra. She was leaving in a few hours, not wanting to wait too late to get a jump on the grueling Friday afternoon Atlanta to Athens traffic.
First, though, she had to schedule them a concert at the Athens Theater, which was playing New Wave tunes from the town’s 80s heydays in her ears a bit too loudly. The idea was to start the tour in their hometown, as well as give them a practice gig where they’d have the home team advantage, and build their confidence. It was also an opportunity to polish their show and work out any kinks, especially if they had to replace the bassist with recorded tracks and sync up with a computer.
“Hi, are you still there?”
The voice startled Jessica and she jumped an inch out of her chair.
“Hi,” she said in a bubbly voice. “Is this Sharon Stevens?”
“Yes, I’m the manager. I’m so sorry to keep you waiting. We’ve had a bit of a tragedy to deal with. You’re…” Jessica heard her rattling paper. “Jessica Chandler, Sage Records?”
“Right. So good to talk to you.” Jessica didn’t know what the tragedy was, and didn’t have time to inquire—she had to book this gig and get her ass on the road to Athens. It wasn’t any of her business anyway. She took a breath to calm herself, get professional, and concentrate on the moment, not the upcoming tedious drive. “You may have heard ‘Fire It Up,’ the first single from our new act, Penumbra.” A bit premature calling them “our new act,” but she’d get them on board. Especially when she brought them a shiny new concert gig.
“I haven’t been under a rock the past couple of days,” Sharon Stevens said. “I’ve heard it. Well, heard of it. I haven’t actually listened to the song yet. But it seems to be quite the sensation.”
Jessica smiled, knowing it would come through in her voice. “They’ll be releasing an album, and plan to tour to support it. We thought it would be appropriate if they opened at the Athens Theater.”
“Hells, yes, it would,” Sharon exclaimed. “We have an opening tomorrow night. Could they be ready by then?”
Jessica was stunned. Tomorrow night? “Um…”
“I know it’s ultra short notice, but we’ve just had a cancellation.” She paused, and when she continued, she sounded more subdued. “Black Chasm of Eternal Sorrow was booked for tomorrow night, but…my God, I can’t believe it, but their singer was murdered. Some time Wednesday night. They called yesterday…”
“I’m so sorry,” Jessica said. “I just saw them last week.”
She didn’t know what else to say. The singer’s face was still clear in her mind. Now he was dead. She’d been so fixated on tracking the snowballing progress of “Fire It Up” that she hadn't been able to keep up with the parade of dramatic events. She hadn’t seen any mention of a local musician’s death. Hell, war could’ve been declared against England and she’d have missed it. “How did it happen? Do they have a suspect?”
“No, it’s a complete mystery. They found him in his apartment with—” she took a breath, “—a horri
ble head wound. Like somebody hit him with an axe.”
“Jesus.”
“I know, right? Anyway, they were booked here tomorrow night. If your guys could fill that slot, they’d be welcome to play here any time they’d like in the future.”
Club managers always said that. However, if things kept going the way they were headed, Penumbra would never need to play a medium-size venue again. “I don’t know, Sharon, I doubt they’ve even rehearsed yet.” She shook her head resolutely. “No, no way. We couldn’t begin to do any publicity. We’d need ads out a week in advance at the very least, and—”
Sharon interrupted her. “Are you kidding me right now? Publicity? You’ve got more publicity already than most bands get in their entire careers. Jump on it while it’s hot, take advantage of the worldwide name recognition. People will probably hop planes from across the country to come here.”
Jessica could picture the dollar signs in Sharon’s eyes. “I don’t see how—”
“We have a good crowd on Saturday nights anyway, no matter who’s playing. Put it on your website, Facebook, and Twitter. The announcement will get retweeted so fast it’ll make your head spin. It’ll be the equivalent of a Flash Crowd. It’ll sell out long before show time.”
“It would be good to get the inevitable bootleg phone videos on YouTube.”
“Damn straight,” Sharon crowed. “Here’s your chance for immediacy. Throw some accelerant on the fire. What do you say, Jessica?”
The Penumbra phenomenon was still gaining speed, it seemed, rolling over Jessica like a freight train. She’d called to talk the theater into hosting a has-been band and now she felt like she’d just fallen for a fast-talked con. On the other hand, this was just what she’d wanted. The biggest venue in a University town synonymous with the alternative music scene was wetting its panties to get her prog metal band in there.