Road Rash

by Mark Huntley Parsons

  Just then the waitress returned with our food. She set three plates in the middle of the table, along with a few small dishes of sauces and something that I swear was a big gob of green Play-Doh.

  “Can I bring you anything else?” she asked.

  “No, it looks perfect,” Glenn said. To me it looked like logs of rice and fish and veggies—with more raw fish on top—cut into slices.

  “That one’s spicy,” he said after she left, pointing to the one in the middle as he snagged a piece of it with his chopsticks, “but good. The others are mild.” He put a thin slice of some pink stuff on top of it, followed by a small chunk of the green Play-Doh. “That’s ginger, and this stuff is wasabi. It’s great, but it’ll clean out your sinuses.”

  Spicy, I can hang with. I did the same as Glenn and used my chopsticks to shove a big bite of raw fish, rice, ginger, and wasabi into my mouth. Whoa. He wasn’t kidding about the sinus alert—my nose burned and my eyes started to water, and then bang … it was gone. Wild.

  As I tried different things on the table, I took up where we’d left off. “So, that clinic,” I said. “It sounds pretty amazing. But I have one question. All those songs he recorded? The ones that made him a top player? The records and the concerts and the hit singles on the radio?”

  “Yeah …?”

  “Were they cover tunes?”

  “No, of course not. Ninety-nine percent were someone’s orig—” He suddenly stopped, then slowly smiled. “I think I’m being Zach-attacked.”

  I shrugged. “Sorry. I just don’t get why we’re not doing your originals. You know way better than me that it’s the only way to get to the next level. And they’re freakin’ good. At least what I’ve heard so far.”

  “Thanks. But you didn’t ask why we weren’t doing originals. You asked why we weren’t doing my originals.”

  That little manga lightbulb went off over my head again. “Oh … Does Brad write?”

  “A little.”

  “And …?”

  It was his turn to shrug. But other than that, it was strictly no comment. I had to give it to him—he had the perfect chance to bag on a bandmate who probably had no reservations about returning the favor, and he let it go. Man, I knew a couple of guys back in Los Robles who could use a shot of that.

  “Look at the Who, as long as we’re in classic-rock mode,” I said. “You didn’t see Roger Daltrey bitching that Pete Townshend wrote all the tunes. They each played to their strengths, and I guess you could say it worked out fairly well.”

  “Amen, brother …”

  “So?”

  “So … what do you think of the ‘bait’?”

  I realized I’d put away quite a bit of sushi while we’d been talking, and I found myself wishing there was more. “It’s good,” I admitted. “You’ll have to tell me what we just ate so I can order it again.”

  “Grab a to-go menu on the way out, and you can make notes.”

  “Good idea. But about your songs …”

  “Look, I understand where you’re coming from, and I appreciate what you’re saying. But for now we’re doing what we’re doing.” He paused. “Okay?”

  What else could I say? “Okay.” But I still didn’t get why he was hanging in a cover-band situation, with those chops and those tunes.

  Come to think of it, there were a lot of things I didn’t get.

  17

  “Hey Jealousy”

  From: Kimberly Milhouse [kimmilhouse@cencast.net]

  Sent: Saturday, June 26 7:27 AM

  To: Zach Ryan [ZR99@westnet.net]

  Subject: RE: Road life

  Hey, Zach,

  Sounds like you’re having such a wild time out there you can’t even remember what day it is. (As of today you’ve been on the road for five days. Trust me.) And thanks for the schedule—that helps.

  So you’re a Musketeer now, huh? I suppose that’s a good thing—hard to tell from here. (In other words: photos, please!) Summer school is exactly as you’d imagine it to be, so I’m not going to waste any time on that.

  Yeah, the whole thing with you and Kyle is just sad. He won’t talk about it, but I know he misses having you in the band. He really needs someone he can bounce ideas off of, someone who’ll speak the truth. What they’ve got now is a bunch of yes-men, and I can tell he’s not happy. And apparently Josh is not exactly cutting it in the studio—his dad is having to “Pro Tool” the heck out of his tracks to make them work, whatever that means. The other guys seem fine with it, but Kyle is worried … it might sound okay for the record, but he’s not sure they can make that work live. (The band has started their standing gig @ LoL. I went last night and I think he’s right to be worried.)

  Sorry about being such a downer at your last gig before you left town. Kyle isn’t the only one who wishes you were here. I miss having a rent-a-boyfriend around to keep the jerks away! You know where I can hire one?

  And speaking of Kevin Flanders, no, I haven’t heard a peep from him. But someone else asked me out—Toby. Can you believe it? The band is playing at the town picnic in the park on the 4th of July, and he asked me to go.

  GTG. You’ll have to tell me the story of little sister! ☺

  Later,

  Kimber

  I snugged up the headphones so they wouldn’t slip when I drummed, then I reached across to my laptop and clicked record. That killer guitar riff of Glenn’s started. I let it play once by itself as I nodded my head in time. On the second time around I started building up a series of pounding eighth notes on the snare. By the third repeat I was playing the full groove, using the syncopated part that had popped into my head the very first time I’d heard the riff. After four times through I stripped it down to a sparse, driving beat, making room for the vocals. Glenn’s recorded voice came in. You go north and I go south every day …

  I was working with the basic guitar/vocal demo Glenn had given me, trying to whip it into a finished production. It also needed bass guitar and backing vocals, but one thing at a time.…

  I finished the take and played it back over the phones. It was almost there, but I’d gotten off a little during the final repeat chorus. I wasn’t sure if I was pushing or Glenn’s track had been pulling, but it didn’t really matter. I spent about ten seconds considering the merits of trying to fix it in the mix later, then decided to just do it again—there were a few small things I could have done better, and whole takes are usually better than bits and pieces edited together.

  After a couple more takes I was pretty happy. Maybe it wasn’t mathematically perfect, but it sounded about as locked together as it could be, and more important, the feel was there … it actually rocked pretty damn hard.

  I looked at my watch. Whoa … the other guys would be here pretty soon. I put the mics back to their original positions onstage, then saved and shut down the session before I fired off a quick email.

  From: Zach Ryan [ZR99@westnet.net]

  Sent: Saturday, June 26 9:46 AM

  To: Kimberly Milhouse [kimmilhouse@cencast.net]

  Subject: RE: Road life

  Got your reply. I’ve decided not to bore you with the little sister stuff now. I’ll tell you in person next time I see you, if you care. Or not.

  Personally, I don’t get it, but have fun at the picnic.

  Later.

  “Hey, baby brother/den mother, what’s shakin’?” That would be Brad, walking up onto the stage with Jamie. He seemed to be in a good mood, and I guess I could understand why. The last two nights had gone a lot smoother than the first, and our woodshedding was paying off—we were just about ready for the stupid classic-rock thing that evening.

  A few minutes later Danny and Amber showed up. Amber was carrying a hot pot and Danny had a tray full of cups and spoons. They set it all up on a small table at the side of the stage. Amber poured a cup and brought it up to me. “Here you go, Zach. No jokes, no kidding, no frog-at-the-bottom. Just coffee.” She grinned. “And no receipt—we raided the kitchen.”

&
nbsp; “Thanks.”

  Jamie looked around. “Anyone seen GT?”

  The way things were going, I was half expecting him to walk in with Jackie-the-waitress or something, probably carrying a basket of blueberry muffins.

  “Uh, he was still asleep when I left the room,” I said, neglecting to mention that was like two hours ago. “You want me to go get him?”

  “Naw, he’s a big boy. He doesn’t need a den mother,” Brad said. “Besides, he’s never late—he’s a professional.”

  That pretty much guaranteed his late arrival, didn’t it? And he was. Almost. Right at ten he showed up in a hurry and headed for the stage to get his gear ready. As he walked by, I raised both eyebrows.

  “Working on a song,” he said, shaking his head. “Sorry.” He looked up at the stage, where Jamie was talking with Brad. “But when the muse strikes …” He paused. “Hey, through the floor I thought I heard you working on something down here. Anything interesting?”

  “Not sure yet,” I said, which wasn’t complete fiction, because you never really know how something’s going to come out until the final mix is done. “Maybe later.” I nodded toward the others, getting ready to play. “Right now I think we have a date with some oldies but goodies.”

  He pulled a face. “Don’t remind me. Yeah, let’s do it.”

  It actually went pretty well. We didn’t have time to play through everything one more time—that would have taken at least four hours. But we had a complete set list, based on the stuff I’d taken from my computer, and we went down the list, stopping at any song where someone had a question. Sometimes we’d play an intro and a verse, and once in a while we’d play the entire song, but usually we’d all go “Got it,” and we’d move on to the next one. I kept a copy of the set list at my drums, and whenever I wasn’t that familiar with something, I’d jot a word or two next to the song title, just as a reminder. Like “fast shuffle” or “6/8 ballad” or whatever.

  By the time they opened their doors for lunch, we were done with the list and feeling pretty good about it. As I zipped up my stick bag, my phone buzzed—someone was texting me. Kimber.

  Hey, Zach—what’s wrong?

  I put it away and went to join the others.

  “You know,” Brad said, “this is sounding done. I say we take the afternoon off.”

  I looked out the window—it was a totally killer day, and I felt the sudden urge to get the hell out of there for a while. “Hey, does anybody feel like going for a bike ride or something?”

  “You mean we rent some Harleys and go for a putt? Hell yeah!” Danny said.

  “Uh … I was actually thinking bicycles.”

  He shrugged. “Okay, that works, too.” He looked at Amber. “You in?”

  “You up for a tandem, big guy?”

  “I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” I said, then looked at the others. “You guys up for it?”

  Jamie looked at Brad. She didn’t say anything, but I had the impression she was giving him her version of the look.

  “Naw, I think I’ll just stay here and chill,” he said.

  Wow. He’d totally missed it. Or maybe he didn’t care …?

  Jamie just sat there, staring at him. Finally, she turned to me. “Count me in.”

  “Great,” I said. “Glenn …?”

  He avoided looking at either Brad or Jamie. After a minute he shrugged. “Okay.”

  Just then Jake came up to us. “Hey, guys, how we doing?”

  We all nodded and said hi and stuff.

  “I just wanted to say I’ve noticed you guys bustin’ your butts, learning songs for tonight. I appreciate that. It’ll be a great night, you’ll see.”

  “Thanks,” Brad said. “I hope so.”

  “Oh, it will. Trust me.” He smiled. “But if you guys really want to put the cherry on the ice cream, you need to look the part, too.” He called over to the bar. “Rachel, can you bring over the magic duffel?”

  Rachel brought over a big blue duffel bag and set it down in front of us. “Don’t worry, they’re all laundered,” she said.

  The girls immediately started digging through it as Jake went on. “Look, guys. I’m not going to make you wear this stuff if you don’t want to, but it’s a theme night and it really helps set the tone. Trust me—this ain’t my first rodeo.”

  Brad buried his face in his hands and shook his head. “Oh, man …” And I hate to say it, but I was feeling the same way.

  It was the girls that won us over. “C’mon,” Jamie said, holding up a pair of lime-green stretch pants and a black-and-white-striped top. “You’ll all look great in this stuff. It’ll be a blast.”

  “Yeah,” Amber said. “It’ll be like a giant costume party.”

  “Then you’ve gotta do it, too,” said Danny.

  “Bring it on,” she shot back.

  Personally, I think it all comes down to the fact that girls like to dress up, but at least Danny got something for us out of the potential humiliation.

  “Okay,” he said to Jake. “Here’s the deal. We’ll wear this stuff and put on a rockin’ retro show for you …”

  “But …?”

  “Do you think you can scare up five bicycles for us this afternoon so we can see your beautiful community in style?” Amber cleared her throat and Danny caught her look. “Uh, make that three and a tandem,” he added.

  Jake didn’t even blink. “Done.” He grinned. “And here I thought you were going to ask for something hard. Tell you what: go up the street a block and turn left, you’ll see Mountain Sports around the corner. Talk to Andy—I’ll call and set it up.”

  “That’s nice of you,” Glenn said, with a sideways glance at Danny. “But we don’t want to cost you a bunch of money.”

  “Don’t sweat it. Us locals look out for each other. Andy won’t charge me, and I’ll buy the beer for him and his crew when they show up tonight. Win-win.”

  Amber and Danny seemed to have a great time on the tandem bike. Apparently, Amber had some experience at this, because she just laid down a few rules for Danny and away they went. As Glenn, Jamie, and I got to the crest of a particularly long hill a few miles out of town, Amber and Danny were waiting at the top for us, looking at the little map Andy had given us. “Looks like there’s a park on the right maybe ten miles up the road,” Amber said. “How about we all meet there?”

  We agreed and they took off, with the three of us following. I cruised along, enjoying the view, and Glenn and Jamie talked away behind me. It’s not like I was eavesdropping, but I couldn’t help overhearing bits and pieces. They were talking about the gig at first, then they played a little musical Celebrity Deathmatch, and then they went on about music in general.

  What surprised me was Jamie. She almost seemed like a different person. I mean, she was super-nice, but I hadn’t thought of her as a deep thinker.

  Well, I was clearly out to lunch on that one. She and Glenn were bouncing concepts back and forth like a Ping-Pong ball, and she was definitely holding her own, kinda like an older version of Kimber in full-on professor mode.

  They rode along side by side, totally oblivious to everything else, which made me feel like I was intruding on something private. So I slowly pulled ahead, and pretty soon I was by myself. With several miles to go. Which gave me time to think. Too much time, actually. Because something was bugging me, and I was going to have a hard time avoiding it, out here all by my lonesome.

  God, it was so lame. What was bugging me was a stupid little email. That’s all. No, what was really bugging me was my reaction to a stupid little email. I mean, it’s a free country, right? What the hell do I care if my ex–bass player’s sister goes to a picnic with some jerk?

  Don’t answer that.…

  18

  “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor”

  Spandex sucks.

  And that’s not even considering fashion issues. Have you ever tried actually working in the stuff?
I mean, who wants to put on tight-fitting drastic/​plastic/​spastic/​elastic clothing and go exercise in it? Under hot lights? In a crowded room? With limited air circulation? Yuck!

  “Uh, anything else available?” I asked Amber, our self-designated wardrobe girl. “Like maybe something with a little, you know, cotton in it?”

  “Aw, you look hot in that, Z-man.”

  I didn’t really care—I needed to be able to move and breathe. Plus, she was almost certainly just working me. “Thanks. It might work for Jamie and Brad, but I’d melt like the Wicked Witch of the West before we finished the first set.”

  She was already nodding and digging through the magic duffel, throwing stuff left and right. “Here you go—made for the aerobically active percussionist, and you’ll look even hotter in this. Give you a chance to show off those drummer-boy arms.”

  God, was she ever serious? What she’d come up with was a pair of puffy black parachute pants and a tiger-striped muscle shirt. But hey—at least they were cotton.

  But as she held the outfit up, she said, “Hmm, it’s kind of the wrong era.…”

  “That’s okay—I’ll take it. Thanks for the help.” I grabbed it and bailed out of there quick before she found something more “era-appropriate.”

  I went back to my room and started an email to Kimber. I wrote half a page, then decided it didn’t say what I wanted to say … or maybe I just didn’t know what I wanted to say. So I deleted the whole thing and went downstairs to join the others for dinner.

  Things were pretty quiet around the ol’ D&P dining table. I mean, I wasn’t exactly in a talkative mood, and Brad seemed downright sullen. When I arrived, he was just sitting there, with a beer going and an empty on the table. And this time Glenn wasn’t saying anything about it. In fact, he wasn’t saying much of anything at all, and neither was Jamie. Which was quite a change from this afternoon. And in contrast to all of the above—and making it even more obvious—was the fact that Danny and Amber were completely unaware of the silence around them, just talking and laughing and having a good old time.