by Jamie Knight
Without looking, I set the needle back to rights, pounding music filling my skull via the stereo headphones. They were the huge, tin-can style type that were making a comeback. Probably because they were significantly more comfortable than earbuds.
By sheer happenstance, I noticed the steady march of time had brought me to the point where I had half an hour before I was late to show up at the office.
The fact that I was the one who actually set the schedules was a great comfort as I rose from the chair. That plan didn’t exactly go down like gangbusters, my stiff and aching legs clearly not listening to a word my brain was shouting.
The needle came up off the vinyl without a sound, the sleeve laying empty on the floor. It was a first pressing of Immortal Territory by Lords of Sacred Shadow. It had been Luna’s favorite. I closed my eyes, silencing the screaming ghosts, and slid the record back into its proper place.
For someone not considered to have a ‘real job’, until I started making six-figures that is, I could be a real stickler for organization. Part of why I’d done so well. I also never really got into the drug scene. Music and sex were my own highs of choice. No less potent, but not as likely to leave you insensible, at least not for long.
Warm water embraced my aching muscles, reducing their piteous cries to a manageable whimper as the droplets ran the gauntlet of scars and tattoos from my neck to my feet. Most were more intentional than others, yet almost all of them were permanent reminders of youthful mistakes.
That was okay, though. They helped to keep me humble.
The closet doors slip open like the entrance to an ancient cathedral, my suits lined up like dutiful sentinels. A neat row of Converse sneakers was lined up under them, like a last nod to my mad formation.
The rest of my outfits trended towards the dress casual. Usually slacks, sometimes subtle jeans, with a polo shirt. They went better with my shorter hair and corrected vision. I only made the admission, even to myself, that I really did need glasses, in my mid-20s. How I managed to live that long going about the world half blind was a sort of miracle.
The engine roared to life like a poked dragon, settling down into a steady rumble. Closing up the garage, I rocketed out onto the empty street, the other members of my quiet suburbia having already gone about the business of their day.
I’d lived downtown for a while, but you only needed to hear a couple shootings outside your window before a suburban ranch seemed like much less of a ‘sellout’ – a term I never really understood even in its most limited form.
My good friend Cam and I had often debated whether music should be made for art, or money, or both.
Wasn’t the idea of recording records to sell them and make money from your art?
How was that a bad thing if you stayed true to your vision?
Parking was easy, since I was later than usual, and most people had already gotten to their day jobs, including those who served coffee to the likes of me. It was a mixed blessing, to be sure. While I lamented their loss of autonomy, the very notion of me trying to use an Espresso machine brought about a sense of existential dread that was roughly on par with the feeling I got when I thought about nuclear proliferation.
“Tall hot chocolate with whipped cream.”
“Going on a detox?” Skyler asked, punching in the order.
She was the barista who was always here, and knew that I was a regular.
“Good guess.”
Not that there wasn’t still caffeine in the hot chocolate, of course. Just a lot less than even the smallest latte. I wasn’t to the point of muscle jitters, but I thought it was a good idea to give my heart a break. I wasn’t as young as I used to be and two and a half decades of copious coffee consumption could be cause for concern.
Following the time-honored tradition, I stepped to one side, and waited to be summoned by the beverage guardians. The chair creaked softly under me as I eased down, even though it was unlikely to be a long wait.
I saw someone I didn’t want to see just then, and wished I could pretend that I hadn’t, but there was no way to avoid it.
I would know her anywhere, even though I hadn’t been told she’d been released. She hadn’t seen me yet and my first instinct was to run. Her name, Clara, was on the tip of my tongue. It was an unutterable hex that could only lead to my immediate doom.
Never had I been more thankful for my change in appearance. I just turned in my chair, so my back was to her, wishing I had given Skyler a fake name to call out when my order was ready.
Seth wasn’t that unusual of a name. Far from a Tad or a Layne. But still nowhere near as common as a Curt, even with the Germanic K, or a Chris.
I got ready to move fast when beckoned to the counter, an event that couldn’t come soon enough as far as I was concerned. And mercifully, I retrieved my beverage without any drama.
My arch nemesis, Clara, hadn’t seen me. She couldn’t try to stalk me or ruin my life, at least not any more right this moment than she already had.
I was so glad to be out of that coffee shop and in my own car. Of all the gambits I’d pulled off in my life, successfully steering a Ducati with a full take-out cup of hot chocolate between my thighs ranked near the top. I made it to the office in record time.
Cup in hand for an accessible way to sip it, I blew past the security in the building, who damn well knew my face by then, and headed for the elevators. Suspicious Activity had started in a garage before moving to a disused factory in an industrial zone. My friend Cam and I had initially wanted to call it Factory Records, but that name was already taken, as were Virgin and Rough Trade.
The name that stuck came from an incident when the cops raided the factory space without cause, or a warrant, for the third time in a row. Apparently, they knew something we didn’t about our business, as they always seemed certain there was something illegal going on.
They were wrong. Some of the musicians we recorded smoked cigarettes, but last time I checked that was still legal.
I started to sometimes regret the name by my mid-30s, because it was a mouthful and it also kind of made us sound like hooligans, but it had already become our brand. Something none of us really expected.
Cam and I had started the label as a way to release our own stuff, following in the independent footsteps of The Beatles’ Apple Records and Frank Zappa’s Barking Pumpkin.
But we caught the attention of the local scene and grew from there, even after our band, Autumn Corrosion, broke up, due to a fatal case of dead drummer. With the change in fortunes came a move of locations.
Cam and I, and our other band mates, moved to our very own corner of the beating heart of the big scary city. We’d mostly grown up in Olympia, so it was something of a culture shock.
“Morning, Holly,” I told the receptionist.
“Morning, sir.”
“Please, you know you can call me Seth.”
“Sure, but do I prefer to?” she asked, with a cheeky wink.
I knew she had a boyfriend and was just playing with me. Like when servers ironically called me ‘young man,’ it being well understood by both of us that it wasn’t the ‘man’ part of that phrase that was in question, but the ‘young.’
“Your new intern, Jonna, is here,” Holly informed me. “She’s waiting in your office.”
“Oh, what’s she like?”
“Other than delicious?” Holly wiggled her eyebrows at me.
“Yes, other than that,” I said, resisting the urge to roll my eyes, knowing she was kidding again.
“Seems eager. Certainly looks the part. Going by her application, she should at least be trainable.”
My heart skipped a bit. I didn’t think she meant it that way, but Holly’s mention of ‘trainable’ raised an instant attention in both my mind and my pants.
“Well, I’d better go say hello.”
Moving swiftly, I opened the door, not giving much forewarning of my arrival. The poor darling seeme
d startled, though Holly hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d described Jonna as ‘delicious.’ Instead, she had merely been speaking the empirical truth, even for a straight girl.
From her cherry red Converse sneakers to her white blond ponytail, she was the picture of perfection. The kind of girl they wrote poems and songs about.
“She Walks in Beauty” started running through my own mind, followed closely by “Jolene,” which reached almost the same level of exaltation, if you listened closely.
My eyes were drawn immediately to her chest. Partly by the sweet, lush fullness of her perky young breasts, but then to the iconic Autumn Corrosion T-shirt from our ‘98 tour. She must have gotten it online or somewhere. There was no way she was old enough to have been there.
I tore my eyes away from her ample breasts and couldn’t help letting them linger on the rest of her body, which was perfectly full of curves and just my type. I really wanted to squeeze her plump ass, and let my hands trail down her hourglass figure.
I felt like a dirty old man, despite only being 40. The age gap between us was rather large— more than two decades. I wasn’t old enough to be her father. But that didn’t stop me from having dirty, dirty thoughts about what I wanted to do to her.
In a weird way, though, it also caused me to feel like an echoing chasm every time I looked into her innocent eyes, though. They were full of both hope and wonder.
“Right,” I said, remembering myself. “Where would you like to start?”
Chapter Three - Jonna
I couldn’t speak. There were words in my head, but none of them would come out of my mouth. Seth was actually right there, talking right to me. I couldn’t believe it.
I thought for a second he’d been checking out my tits, but I couldn’t quite be sure. Maybe he was just staring at the shirt I was wearing, since it was relevant, and all of that.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked him.
“Where would you like to start?” he repeated patiently.
“What needs to be done?”
“Good answer,” he said, with a sly wink. “The exact tasks can change by the day at this job. You’ll be by my side through most of it, watching and helping when needed. It might sound easy but it can be a real boot camp. The skills needed are varied and can change at a moment’s notice. It can be a challenge. Do you think you can handle it?”
“Yes,” I said, almost sure I believed it.
“Good. If you do well, there could be a more permanent job in it for you.”
My hopes stayed resolutely earthbound, despite wanting to take wing. Gritty realism—not youthful optimism— was my best bet for success.
“I’ve got some demos to listen to; we could start with that,” he suggested, and I nodded my agreement.
For a brief, beautiful instant, it looked like he was going to have me sit on his lap. It was the only way we could both listen to the headphones, since there was only one chair— at least until he unplugged the headphones, the CD player already on speakers, and rolled over his desk chair for me.
My disappointment run out of town with pitch forks and torches, I sat on the office chair, next to the main one at the listening station. I was still very much at the ready for whatever might come. After taking a CD case from the pile in front of the player, Seth put it in.
While we waited for the first song to cue up, he got a Moleskine and fountain pen from the desk before settling into the other chair. His pen was poised at the ready when the onslaught began.
It was maybe a minute before he switched to the next track, a frown etched onto his face. There was little improvement, the entire demo a write-off by the second of the four tracks.
“That’s a no,” Seth said, starting a new pile in front of the player.
I nodded in agreement once again, hoping that my face didn’t show the disgust I felt at hearing that demo. He showed me his notebook, which had the names of all the bands in the pile for that day.
The first, a death metal duo called ‘Infant Annihilator,’ had a line through their column, with a sizeable x next to it.
I was glad I’d never have to listen to them again.
“It’s like a check list?” I asked Seth.
“Sort of, only with eliminations, and you write it out yourself.”
“I see.”
Not too hard, then. It was beginning to look like a pretty easy job after all. Then he put on the next record.
The music absolutely blasted out, and I couldn’t help it; my hands flew to my ears. I liked my music as loud as the next rock fan, but not only was this loud, it was even worse than the first one had been, and I hadn’t thought that was possible.
I kept my fingers pressed tight into my ears until I realized there was no lingering pounding, then cautiously unplugged them.
“It’s safe now,” Seth said.
A hand touched my shoulder. The spark was undeniable. I fully uncovered my ears and looked at him with hope and longing.
“Does that happen a lot?” I asked him. “The really horrible demos, I mean?”
“More than I’d like it to,” he admitted. “One of the downsides to mostly being a Metal label is that there can be a very superficial understanding of what the music is supposed to sound like.”
“It was just screaming,” I said, still wincing. “Not growling, even. There was no control at all.”
“I hear you. It’s shocking at first, but you’ll get used to it.”
He sat back down and picked up the next prospect. Meanwhile I held my breath, praying for better things. Regardless, I folded my hands in my lap and crossed my fingers, determined not to cover my ears again either way. I didn’t want to be unprofessional.
“Loki’s Laugh,” Seth announced. “They’re usually pretty good.”
My muscles melted as the disc spun. Sweet relief in sonic form filled the utilitarian space.
“And that’s a yes,” Seth said, extravagantly adding a checkmark beside the name.
The glory was never to return. As we continued to listen, all subsequent bands fell short of Loki’s Laugh, but they also, mercifully, greatly surpassed the first couple offerings, so the overall experience wasn’t completely agonizing. That was always a good thing.
It had taken most of the morning to get through the stack and was getting to be early afternoon by the time Seth returned the Moleskine to the desk.
“Get your coat,” he instructed me.
I liked the take-charge tone in his voice.
“Where are we going?” I asked him, although the answer didn’t really matter because I’d happily follow him anywhere.
“The Sanctuary.”
He wasn’t just being cryptic. The Sanctuary was the nickname for Suspicious Activity’s main recording studio. No one was quite sure where it came from, at least not that they were willing to admit, but it was the backbone of the label for years.
Seth was halfway to the door before it became clear that it was all actually real. I wasn’t still in a dream from last night; I was actually here and had just been invited by sexy Seth to The Sanctuary! I followed at a dash, just trying to keep up with him.
The scent was palpable when we arrived. Incense mixed with other smells I couldn’t quite identify. Seth was famous for his de facto straight-edge lifestyle, so I knew it wasn’t booze or weed. Still, my curiosity was piqued.
“What are we doing?” I asked, already thinking about us as a combo.
“Checking in on a recording session. I like to keep up on things when I’m not able to produce myself.”
“Which band?”
He rattled off a name that I immediately recognized as a favorite— AGAB— and I nodded, excitement rippling through me.
It was like moving through molasses. The certainty that it was all some sort of beautiful dream reasserted itself, to the point that I was moving as though through fuzzy clouds. I was beginning to realize that working for Seth might always feel like a fan
tasy because my new reality seemed too good to be trust.
Suddenly another guy walked in.
“Who’s she?” he demanded.
It wasn’t the most welcoming opening, but I tried to keep things professional and to remember my place.
“It’s cool, Sven, she’s with me,” Seth answered him.
“Another intern?”
“Can you think of a better way to find employees?”
“Considering that that was how you hired me, I’m not really in a position to object, now am I?”
“Nope.”
Seth pulled out a chair and I sat down without him needing to say a word. He sat me next to Sven, who I could only assume was the musician Sven Larssen, and got back down to business.
“Okay, that was good,” he told the AGAB band. “Let’s take it from the beginning of ‘Everything You Hate.’”
The gang was all there. It was difficult for the mind to hold, but the band that so often sounded like a standing army only had three members. Each was covered in an almost clownish level of corpse paint and spikes.
“Might want to be watching the board,” Seth whispered, “unless you’re planning on starting a band.”
Readjusting my focus to Sven’s hands, the magic happened before my eyes. It was still mostly a mystery at that point, but it would all come clear eventually. Of that I was certain.
Seth wasn’t far off about me starting a band. I’d already tried a couple of times to no great avail.
Then I’d found out about one-person music projects like Spectral Lore and Boreal Tundra and figured I could do something similar. I was interested in all aspects of the label but was also working to get to the point where I might broach the subject of my home recorded demo.
Like how I’d heard writers used to get jobs at the big comic book publishers, working their way up from the mailroom, which apparently happened more often than one might think. Even if it didn’t work out, I could have experience in the administrative and producing areas. It was likely not what my parents had had in mind when they had suggested a ‘fall back,’ but it beat the tar out of the other options open to an Art History major.