by Debra Oswald
‘That sounds good – like a real band,’ offered Joel.
‘No,’ said Charlie firmly. ‘We can’t name it after me. We’re all equal in this band.’
By the time the rehearsal session ended, they were no closer to agreeing on a name.
Erin hung back to help Charlie put away the gear that belonged to the music department.
‘That wasn’t bad. For a first go,’ said Charlie.
‘No – I mean, yeah, it was good … I think. Not that I know anything about that kind of music or …’ Tripping over her words, Erin gave up.
‘Sounded delish to my ears,’ Charlie said, grinning, as he dragged an amplifier back against the wall.
‘How come you play bass?’ asked Erin. ‘Why bass rather than something else?’
‘Because the bass is the spine of the music,’ Charlie replied.
‘But I mean, you’re so into this music, I thought you’d want to play lead guitar.’
‘Oh no. Lead guitarist and lead singer can be out the front, being the stars. I like laying down the structure, the deep guts of a number.’
Erin got what he was saying. Up until then, she hadn’t been entirely sure about this weird, pushy little guy with his rapid-fire mouth. But now she decided he was for real. He wasn’t some smart-arse kid who’d picked this music for the sake of being different and to get attention. Charlie Novak genuinely loved this stuff. And he wanted other people to love it too.
‘You’ve got an mp3 player with you?’ Charlie asked her.
‘Yeah,’ said Erin. She fished around in her bag to find the mp3 player her uncle had brought back from Hong Kong last Christmas.
‘I don’t really listen to this thing much,’ Erin was embarrassed to admit.
Charlie nodded. ‘Kids at this school – they mostly listen to rock, techno, heavy metal, pop, maybe the occasional motown track, yeah?’
‘Yeah, I guess.’
‘Me, I like all the music on this earth,’ said Charlie. ‘Okay, except maybe the extreme end of techno. Which is a form of anti-music. The point is, all those kinds of music are great but I want people to experience the special thrill of the real stuff.’
Charlie grinned, eyes blazing. Erin decided he was like an evangelical preacher for blues music.
Over the next week, Charlie filled every band member’s mp3 player with great blues numbers. ‘I want to flood your brains with music that is going to inspire this band,’ he said.
Because of Charlie, Erin discovered the special advantages of using her mp3 player. She could wander around the school or sit on the bus with the earphones on. Now if she smiled or muttered to herself, people didn’t think she was a lunatic. They just assumed she was listening to something funny or singing along with the music.
And it turned out she liked Charlie’s music. She liked it a lot.
Chapter Six
Ash loved to have an industrial-strength sleep-in until midday on Sunday mornings, a habit Ben called ‘spine-bashing’. But this Sunday, Ash set the alarm for 9 am. The band was holding an all-day practice session at Lester’s place and Ash was happy to give up a few hours of spine-bashing for that.
Heading for the shower, Ash noticed Luke’s bedroom door was shut as usual. Luke used block-out curtains to keep his room as dark as a cave, to maximise picture quality on the computer. In the gap under the door, there was a faint bluish glow from the computer monitor but Ash couldn’t hear the tap of his brother’s fingers on the keyboard. Luke had probably fallen asleep mid-level on Clash of the Titans around dawn.
Ash peeked into the lounge room. The curtains were closed, so it took his eyes a moment to adjust. There was no sign that Ben had turned up during the night. Then in the dim light Ash saw a hump on the couch. But it wasn’t Ben – it was his mum asleep on there, curled under a doona she must have dragged off her bed.
Marion went through phases when she slept for hours and hours, day after day. Other times – like the last week – she had terrible insomnia and, desperate for sleep, prowled around the house half the night until her eyes looked raw. So Ash was relieved to see that she’d escaped into a sweet patch of sleep for a little while at least. He shut the door with the gentlest click he could manage.
Ash smeared Vegemite on some toast and was out the door by half-past nine, hiking round to Lester’s house, his footsteps falling into the rhythm of the music in his earphones. He was loving being in this band. They’d been going for a month now, fitting in two rehearsals a week at school. But a full day of practice, a solid block of time to work on songs, would be an extra boost.
Ash figured today would also be a bit of a test. If they practised together all day, would they get on or would they annoy each other? Would the social chemistry work – or create some foul-smelling reaction? In Ben’s band, the personal politics had turned messy – someone fell in love with someone else’s girlfriend, there were arguments about the music, great gobs of blame and irritation and paranoia flying around – until the group disintegrated. Ash knew it was a pretty common story with bands and he didn’t want that to happen.
He went round the side of Lester’s house and into the backyard. Lester had taken possession of a shed at the end of his yard where he could practise drums. He and his dad had done a dodgy job of soundproofing the old fibro structure with hunks of foam, egg cartons, ceiling panels and other stuff they tacked together. It wasn’t perfect but it was soundproof enough to prevent the neighbours from attacking Lester with sharpened sticks when he bashed away on the drums for hours.
Charlie and Lester were already there, setting up the amps Charlie had scrounged from school, home, wherever. Ash could hear the two guys inside the shed, yabbering to each other, and it made him smile. It was big fun to play in a band with a friend as good as Lester. And Charlie Novak was always entertaining to be around.
‘Gooood morning,’ Ash called.
‘Ashman!’ roared Lester like a crazy person.
‘Greetings, oh mighty wizard of the strings,’ said Charlie with a deep bow.
The space inside the shed was cramped, with the jumble of foam chunks and odd-shaped wall panels patched together and tangled bundles of electric leads strung around like jungle vines. There was just enough room for the six band members and their instruments to be squashed in.
Erin turned up next. ‘Hi, Lester,’ she said. ‘So, this is your drummer’s cubby! Very stylish.’
Lester did a little boom-tish on the drums and Erin laughed. She said hello to Charlie with a big smile but the only greeting Ash got was a mumbled ‘hi’ and no eye contact.
Erin Landers was a funny one. Funny in both senses of the word: she said funny stuff and she was hard to figure out. She sometimes acted weird with Ash and hardly ever spoke a word to him. Maybe he’d said something to offend her. Maybe she simply thought he was a creep. He hoped not because he’d always liked Erin; she was an interesting girl and not at all fake. And she really was a fantastic piano player. He’d thought being in the band together meant he’d get to know her better but maybe not.
The saxophone player, Joel, was five minutes late, apologising madly.
‘It’s cool. We’re still setting up,’ Ash told him.
Joel wasn’t the kind of person Ash would usually hang around with but so far he seemed like a really good guy. To begin with, Ash had been worried that Lester and Joel might not get on with each other: the loudmouth drummer into headbanging music was an odd fit with the brainiac jazz musician.
That Sunday, as Joel unclipped his saxophone case, he said, ‘Hey, Lester, how can you tell if the floor in here is level?’
‘How?’ asked Lester. He guessed this was going to be one of those jokes about drummers being dumb.
‘The floor is level if the drummer is drooling out of both sides of his mouth.’
Lester laughed. It was a drummer joke he hadn’t heard before. Then he said, ‘Interesting, but do you know the difference between a saxophone and a chainsaw?’
Joel shook h
is head.
‘One is a hunk of metal that makes a shocking noise and the other one you use to cut down trees.’
Joel cackled like an evil villain and blew a screeching sound on his sax.
The rehearsal in Lester’s shed was supposed to start at ten o’clock. By twenty past there was no sign of Lily Opara. Not that anyone was surprised Lily was late.
‘She’ll turn up,’ said Charlie. ‘Maybe her alarm didn’t go off. Phone battery gone flat. Car tyre gone flat. Broken leg. Broken heart. Could be any number of unfortunate circumstances.’
Charlie was always making excuses for Lily. He sent her a text to remind her about the practice day, then said, ‘Let’s start – add the vocals when Lily’s here.’
So they jumped into ‘Help Me’, the song they always warmed up with, and then mucked around a bit with ‘Green Onions’ because it didn’t need vocals. Lily strolled in at eleven o’clock and didn’t look as if she was torn apart with guilt. She didn’t bother to apologise. She didn’t need to.
‘Sorry. My fault,’ said Charlie. ‘I probably told you the wrong time.’
Lily just shrugged.
Ash wasn’t crazy about Lily Opara. She was generally too full of herself for his taste.
Once Lily showed up, they worked nonstop for two hours, tightening up some songs plus experimenting with new ones. There were mistakes, discussions, doubts, but also a fair bit of laughing; Ash thought the music was really coming together.
Around one o’clock, when pizzas were delivered, they took a break. It was a chance to escape the cramped shed and breathe air that hadn’t already been breathed in and out by someone else.
Ash, Charlie, Lester, Joel and Erin all sprawled themselves out on the lawn, munching away. Lily took one slice and sauntered to the far side of the backyard to make calls on her mobile. Ash noticed the way Charlie followed Lily with his eyes, spellbound. Poor old Charlie, his crush on Lily was getting worse. It was like an illness, with symptoms like moaning and staring into space.
‘So, you’re still crazy about her,’ Ash said, quietly enough that the others wouldn’t hear.
‘Her voice,’ Charlie wailed. ‘It slays me. That voice has captured my soul.’ He was speaking loudly, not caring who heard how he felt about Lily.
Ash didn’t want to insult Charlie but he would hate to see the guy get hurt. ‘Y’ know Charlie, no offence or anything, but you probably don’t have much chance with Lily,’ he said.
‘No chance, no way,’ mumbled Lester through a mouthful of meatlovers.
‘I mean, she goes out with much older guys,’ explained Ash.
‘Guys who go to uni already,’ added Joel.
‘Guys with cars,’ said Lester, spraying mozzarella chunks on Charlie.
Charlie threw his arms out in a helpless gesture. ‘My friends, I cannot control my feelings for this goddess. I am powerless.’
Post-pizza, Lily Opara had to leave for some supposedly important reason. The rest of the band went back to rehearsing without her. They managed okay but it was irritating to practise without the vocalist. As the afternoon rolled on, energy levels began to slump and the music got wobbly: out of time, people coming in at the wrong place, bad notes. During one attempt of ‘Got My Mojo Working’, the wheels fell off entirely.
‘What happened then?’ squawked Lester.
‘Do we suck?’ asked Ash.
Joel groaned. ‘Badly.’
It was late; everyone was tired and over it. But then Erin ran across to her backpack. ‘I know what we need,’ she said. ‘Morale-boosting jelly dinosaurs.’ She pulled out little packets of jelly dinosaurs and chucked them to everyone.
‘The girl is a genius as well as a fine keyboard player!’ Charlie declared.
Joel tore open a packet. ‘An emergency supply,’ he said. ‘You’re a sly one, Miss Erin.’
‘Dinosaurs … need dinosaurs … can’t hold on … can’t … drum any … more,’ Lester wheezed out like a dying man and then collapsed across the drum kit.
‘Quick!’ said Erin. ‘He needs a red one. That’ll revive him.’
Ash and Charlie rushed towards Lester like a paramedic team. Ash lifted Lester’s head off the snare drum and Charlie fed him lollies until Lester gasped for air, making a melodramatic show of being revived by the sugar. As he regained his strength, one hand began to tap slowly on the high hat.
‘It’s working. He’s coming back,’ said Erin.
Ash lifted Lester’s other arm and tapped out a rhythm on the snare drum. ‘Come on, mate. You can do it. You can drum.’
Lester slowly built up the beat until he was drumming unaided. Ash grabbed the spare drumsticks and started playing the kit with him, as if they were doing a double drum solo. Then Charlie picked up a piece of timber off the floor and whacked it in time against one of the support posts, making a metallic clanging sound. Joel and Erin joined in too, using whatever tools and junk they could make into percussion instruments.
The five of them went crazy, pounding out bursts of percussion in every corner of Lester’s shed, the flurry of beats speeding up, slowing down and then building up again to a massive crescendo. Finally, they stumbled out to collapse on the lawn, puffed and grinning and sweating.
Chapter Seven
For the last year, Ash had been doing a part-time job on Wednesdays and Saturdays, making deliveries for the local pharmacy. He rode his bike to various houses in the neighbourhood and dropped off medicines to people who were too old or sick to get to the shops.
Ash had always spent the money he earned on movie tickets, junk food and phone credit. But once Charlie arrived, Ash had begun stashing away almost every dollar he earned. He was saving up to buy that Butterscotch Blonde Fender. He had a small notebook where he kept a careful record of the total amount saved so far, plus estimates of birthday and Christmas money he could expect from his grandparents. He was still a long way off having enough for the guitar, but at least it seemed like a possibility.
Ash liked his job. He enjoyed riding his bike around the suburb and he liked stickybeaking inside other people’s houses.
Ash’s favourite customer was an old Maltese guy, Mr Galea. He always invited Ash in and insisted he chow down on a couple of chocolate biscuits. Mr Galea found it hard to get around and sat in an armchair most of the day. So sometimes Ash did little favours for him; he’d open jars, pull stuff down off high shelves, change a light bulb.
Mr Galea always asked Ash to take the payment for the medicines from a jar of cash he kept in his kitchen. Ash had told him that it wasn’t a good idea to keep hundreds of dollars in cash sitting in a jar on top of his fridge but Mr Galea wasn’t fussed. He usually gave Ash a two-dollar tip.
‘Put it towards that guitar you want,’ said Mr Galea.
One Saturday afternoon, it was almost dark by the time Ash got home from his delivery job. Luke was shut up in his room, either sleeping or playing Clash of the Titans. His mum was in the bathroom. Soaking in the bath relaxed her sometimes.
‘Hi. I’m back,’ Ash called through the bathroom door. There was no answer though. His mum had taken to wearing her special white-noise headphones in the bath too.
Ash went straight to the computer in the lounge room and checked for messages. As usual, there was a message from Charlie.
Ash clicked the latest YouTube link Charlie had sent. It was footage of a massive bearded guy filmed in a rough-looking bar somewhere in America, with red-coloured lighting.
Even through the hiss and fog of bad sound quality, you could tell that Massive Beard Guy was an amazing guitarist. He was playing slide guitar, his hands flying at incredible speed, the music swooping and swerving, creating an irresistible hook.
Did Charlie send this link because he imagined that Ash could play like Massive Beard Guy? There was no way. Maybe he could pick up a few ideas from the clip but it would be a long time before Ash was able to play like that.
Every day, Charlie sent links so Ash could check out guitar licks, techniq
ues and other interesting bits. Charlie just assumed that Ash could play anything.
‘I can’t play that well. You’re insane,’ Ash had said on many occasions. But there was something about Charlie’s bottomless tank of enthusiasm that made Ash want to at least try material out for him. And sometimes Ash surprised himself. If he put the time into practising, he could manage to play a lot of new, tricky stuff.
He watched the YouTube clip through twice and then out loud he said, ‘Good on you, mate,’ to Massive Beard Guy. Anyone who could play like that deserved a compliment, even if it was just from some sixteen-year-old kid in Australia talking out loud to the computer screen in his lounge room.
Ash rummaged in his schoolbag to find the latest CD Charlie had burned for him. Every week, Charlie had a new batch of songs he thought Ash should hear. This week there was a mix of Stevie Ray Vaughan tracks, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Junior Wells, plus some Nightcats.
Ash slipped the compilation in the CD player, stretched himself out on the couch and let the songs on the disc wash over him. He tapped his socked feet against the arm of the couch, in time with the beat. He imagined the music sliding through his blood and soaking into his bones. It was relaxing and energising at the same time, if such a thing was possible.
Out of the great piles of music Charlie threw at him, Ash picked his own favourite musicians and favourite tracks. But all of it, all the different blues music, was like some fan tastic new world, a world he’d only heard in odd scraps before now.
In his head, Ash was keeping a list of the songs that Ben might like. Ben hadn’t been around for ages. There had been one phone message: he was somewhere up the coast and planned to come home soon. When Ben showed up again, Ash wanted to sit him down and introduce his big brother to the best of the blues music he’d discovered.
It was weird to think that Ben – who’d got Ash interested in music in the first place – didn’t know about the stuff Ash was listening to now. It was weirder to think that Ben – who’d taught Ash to play guitar – didn’t even know he was playing in a band now.