Wise Young Fool

by Sean Beaudoin

  Did I screw up?

  Did I nail it?

  Do they hate us?

  I take a second to desperately wish we’d practiced a million more times. Or that I was home on the can playing scales. Or that I had chosen watercolors of horses as a hobby instead of stupid guitar.

  And then something magic happens. We’re halfway into “The Big Book of Little Genocides” and I’m just not scared anymore. Suddenly I don’t care. Or I do care—so much it hurts—but have come to the realization that my caring has no effect on the outcome either way.

  I smile and look up.

  Lacy is killing it, the crowd with her, watching every move. She shimmies, voice all husky. She shakes leather bootie, oozes presence, head thrown back, belting it out.

  My hands choose that minute to fully reanimate. The neck of The Paul seems to shrink; the strings become super fat.

  We segue into “Necro Feel You Up,” chord chord lick lick hook, and here comes my solo. I rest one foot on the monitor, stick out my crotch, and lean over the crowd like a million guitarists have done at a million concerts with varying degrees of cheese since the dawn of time, spitting blood or biting the heads off bats or just wanking the whammy bar in a collective understanding of the language of spectacle.

  The girls in front, low-cut and crazy-haired and remarkably fluent in this language, go crazy, screaming their lungs out. I spool out about a million notes, bend the shit out of my strings, hammer on and hammer off, mostly cheapie tricks but they work, and then step back for Lacy’s chorus with half a beat to spare. El Hella slides right into my spot, pressing his teeth against the mic like he’s gonna swallow it whole. The two of them sing in a tight harmony they’ve obviously been practicing on their own; I’ve never heard it before.

  It’s fucking great.

  Beautiful, even.

  They follow each other around in circles, rising in a wave.

  It’s the kind of small thing, when added to a bunch of similar small things, little accents and fills and ideas, that turn an okay song into something exceptional.

  And they nail it.

  Dice’s compressor redlines, compensates, and then it’s over.

  We go real commando punk style, no stupid patter, count off the next one right away: and one and-a two. We do “Archer Fires Arrow,” pull out all the stops, die-cast our name into the metal plates of the collective skull. I crank my volume pedal and a wall of distortion collapses onto the heads of the willing. We hit the bridge, I fingerpick a solo that copies the melody of Lacy’s vocal, and then out.

  I blink once, twice, and we’re playing “Today’s Duplais Display.” I go from jangly fills into another solo, sort of just aping the chord progression, rude and tasty, some longhairs nodding in appreciation in the back. Outro. We quickly retune. Lacy asks the crowd to give it up for the guitar player. There’s a roar I refuse to look up and acknowledge, mostly because I’ve forgotten that the guitar player is me. Then Lacy reminds everyone not to forget to vote for Best Band, suggesting us as a wise choice for young fools.

  The crowd laughs and then cheers.

  I lean over for a sip of Sprite. And spot Dad Sudden. Out in the middle of the audience. Come to see me, like a scene from a shitty movie, the father passing the baton, watching his son with pride now that he’s become a man.

  Even if he had no part in the man becoming anything.

  But then I blink and it’s not Dad Sudden at all, just some pudgy dude with a smile and a beer and about six hairs on his head. He raises his bottle and whoops.

  And then “Mack the Spoon” is chugging along hard and fast. By the end of the first verse, like a blooming flower or a blooming fist, all these dudes are moshing in front of us, slamming shoulders with rhino force, lipping off the stage and then back into the twirling mass. They’re out of control. Sheer madness.

  Elliot slap-funks a bass solo thing.

  Chaos bam-pitty-bam-pitty-bams.

  And it’s done.

  We put down our instruments, cheer, cheer, cheer, whoo whoo whoo.

  The four of us press together backstage, everyone dripping sweat.

  “Holy shit.”

  “I know.”

  “Wow.”

  “I. Know.”

  Crowd noise shifts into overdrive. Emcee Badass gives us the nod.

  “You guys ready?” he asks with 367 percent more respect than he gave us twenty minutes ago.

  Then we’re back for the encore, first band to get one.

  Cheers, whistles, a broken bottle or two.

  A fair amount of bedlam.

  I shoulder The Paul like an old army buddy at closing time.

  “Disguster” begins. It’s really sort of a vanity vehicle for me, superfast mini-chords over thumpa-thumpa rhythm and Lacy-moan, into an extended distortion thing where I essentially pretend to impregnate my amp. In the meantime, Elliot and Chaos build and build and build until finally the whole thing breaks like a wave of corrosive sludge.

  Lacy looks at me and winks.

  I almost drop my pick but don’t.

  Voice and noise and timbre and lust and fury waft through me, up from the bottoms of my feet and out the top of my skull, like a cartoon gusher, an oil derrick out on a lonely Texas plain just booming with groove and crude.

  There is just something, man, about being in front of a bunch of people, people watching you do your thing, enjoying it, this note, that note, and you’re sort of controlling how they feel with sound. It’s a cliché, sure, it’s everyone’s rock-star fantasy for a reason, but here you are really doing it, and it’s just so bizarre and excellent and fulfilling, deep in the narcotic, adulatory part of your cave-brain, that you don’t ever want to let it go.

  The song is basically over and we’re just vamping around, hunkered in the pocket. The stage dudes keep signaling it’s time for Püre Venum. So, of course, Elliot starts the progression again. I step on my wah pedal and wank wank wank this eighties arena solo just for laughs. They go genuinely apeshit below me, literally drunken primates flinging excrement and warring over control of a stand of banana trees. The stage dudes are really pissed now, screaming at us to wrap it up. Emcee Badass slashes his throat with two fingers like, Cut! Cut! Elliot nods at Chaos as if to say, Oh, hey, sorry. Sure, of course, but instead doubles down on the walk-up and whoops, we’re going around the progression one more time. It’s a colossal F-U, but the crowd is so with us they don’t have the balls to pull the plug, and I’m just improvising shit, atonal, faster and faster and faster until it’s way past common sense or logic, verging on release or madness, and then finally, mercifully, Lacy sings the last line for the fifth time.

  And we are offstage.

  I am herded into some room in back, beaming like I’ve just won a free toaster. A guy in a motorcycle jacket passes around beers and says, “Make sure no one sees you underage fuckers,” and then it’s one glad hand after another.

  “… but yeah, you deserve it; you guys rocked the…”

  “… Wise Young Fool so rules, I mean…”

  “… hey, man, nice Hendrix action…”

  “… hi, I’m Sarah…”

  “… whew, cool, so okay…”

  “… wow some solos, especially the second…”

  “… hi, I’m Wendy…”

  “… drummer is freaking original, I mean, whose idea was…”

  “… just give me your number and we’ll…”

  “… hi, I’m Trish…”

  “… guys got it in the bag…”

  “… necrophilia song is totally…”

  “… kind of funky guitar is that you’re…”

  “… hi, I’m David…”

  “… awesome band, but what you really need…”

  “… but what you really should…”

  “… who you have to meet is…”

  “… hi, I’m Amy…”

  “… hi, I work for…”

  “… hi, I’m friends with…”

  “… hi,
I just want you to know…”

  “… I just want…”

  “… I just want…”

  “… I just want…”

  The words come and go, float and dip, sink or swim, bite or sting. The adulation and rush and need and jealousy, it’s all one big wash until Püre Venum is over and I didn’t hear a note. The judges confab, and then Flog Toggle and Angelo Coxone get back up onstage. They’re at the mic. The crowd quiets down. We’re all hugging one another, holding shoulders. Flog thanks the bands and the bar and the sponsors and God and his mom, then opens up this oversize envelope just like the Oscars.

  He leans into the mic, and in a very low voice announces the winner….

  It’s the band with the guy wearing Pampers.

  There goes Hollyrock.

  Much booing from the crowd. Screaming about it being a fix. A chant of Wise Young Fool! Wise Young Fool! Wise Young Fool! picks up steam in part of the room and then dies. The house music comes on, some DJ shit, and then people swamp the bar for fresh cocktails.

  I roll cords over my shoulder into figure eights as Flog Toggle comes up behind me.

  “You dudes were robbed.”

  “Yeah,” Angelo says. Elliot and Chaos walk over. Lacy is handed a business card by some guy so handsome it makes my teeth hurt.

  “You think?”

  “I do,” Flog says. “On the other hand, if you acted pro and not like a handful of dicks, got offstage at your cue, it might have gone different.”

  I mime a pen. “By any chance you got something I can write that sage advice down on?”

  Flog frowns. And then laughs. “Gotta hand it to you dudes, always staying in character.”

  Angelo nods. “Yeah, okay, you didn’t win, boo hoo. But you want to open up for us next weekend? The original band dropped out, guitar player’s got Legionnaires’ disease or whatever. So we got an open slot.”

  “Think of it as a consolation prize,” Flog says.

  “Screw that!” El Hella roars, a landmass of Proffer-bruises still ripe on his face and not looking too tough at all. “We don’t want nothing from ass bandits like—”

  Chaos smooths in and shuts Elliot up. He takes Flog and Angelo by the arms and leads them away and tells them we’d love to, how generous they are, cool dudes, how great their band is, don’t worry about Elliot Hella, he’s just drunk, he loves you dudes, too, no, no, no hard feelings, yes, yes, yes we will open next weekend, no doubt, love to, hey it’s cool, it’s so cool, let’s go out back and have a smoke, right on, glad there’s someone with a level head in your band, righteous, you guys were really good, but to be honest, we’re better. Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha.

  I’m in Dr. Benway’s office.

  “I have good news.”

  “Okay.”

  “We’re releasing you on schedule.”

  “That’s not funny,” I say.

  “It’s not meant to be. It’s true.”

  “But why? I figured for sure I was a repeater.”

  “I’ve filed a number of recommendations concerning your good behavior.”

  “Huh.”

  “Also, you’ve done truly excellent work with your journal.”

  “I have?”

  She holds up the notebook.

  “To be honest, I believe you have invested more of yourself in these pages than anyone I’ve ever worked with.”

  “That can’t possibly be true.”

  “And yet it is. Further, some of the counselors have suggested it might be wise if you are no longer a member of the population when Mr. Corrigan and Mr. Marcus are released from Preventative Hold.”

  “Who?”

  “Conner and Peanut.”

  “What, so you believe me now?”

  There’s a tuna sandwich on her desk. She takes a bite.

  “What makes you think there was ever a time when I didn’t believe you?”

  We’re at an after-party. All the bands. All the posses. All the velvet-rope types. A few I recognize, but mostly people I’ve never seen before. Someone keeps putting beers in my hand. I keep emptying them out in a plant. Chaos is making nine girls laugh. Elliot’s standing there in a trance, a huge grin on his face, accepting compliments as is his right and due. Lacy is leaning against the bar, accepting drinks from various slick types, as is her Du and Plais.

  One of the Hollyrock dudes tight-pantses it over and stands next to me, playing it cool while he orders a drink. French vodka, top-shelf. He’s wearing a shiny leather jacket and tie. He’s got one of those Julius Caesar haircuts and rectangular glasses.

  “Great set,” he says, like he just noticed me.

  “Thanks.”

  “Listen, I think maybe we have something to talk about.”

  I put down a full beer. Someone hands me a new one.

  “Okay.”

  Hollyrock points at Lacy. “I’ve seen a lot of bands, believe me, but you guys? You’re on fire.”

  “We are?”

  “I think, provided certain items can be agreed upon, that it might be worth flying out to LA to meet the Real Godz crew. The casting people in particular.”

  “Aren’t you the casting people?”

  Hollyrock laughs. “No, I’m just a regional scout. Talent evaluator. But I’m good enough at my job to think that I might have just evaluated some serious talent.”

  I look over at El Hella, being mobbed by arty punk chicks. I can’t wait to tell him. Can’t wait to see him turn red, squat down, and pass a brick.

  “But we didn’t win. What about the winners?”

  “Diaper boy? Um, sorry, no. They lost before they ever got onstage.”

  Lacy sees us talking and leaves five disappointed guys in her wake.

  “Who’s this, Ritchie?”

  Hollyrock reaches into his pocket, hands us each a business card. It’s bone white and soft and expensive, with raised lettering and a logo. It says TREVOR DEMOTIC—ARTISTS AND REPERTOIRE. “I’m the guy who has a proposition for you.”

  Lacy laughs. “Propose away.”

  “Well, I was just telling Ritchie here that I think I can get you a meeting with the Real Godz producers.”

  Lacy squeals in a pitch I’ve only heard once before. “No effing way!”

  Trevor holds up his palms. “Don’t get excited; it’s just a meeting. No promises. You fly out to LA, get styled, get outfitted. We shoot a little footage, see how you test.”

  I look down at my black boots, jeans, and AC/DC Highway to Fred tour shirt.

  “What’s wrong with this style?”

  He laughs. “Yeah, well, it works for now.”

  “Are we flying first class?” Lacy asks.

  “You buy your own ticket, sister. This isn’t the movies. This is barely even TV.”

  She turns slightly less purple than her Mohawk. “Let me go get Elliot.”

  “No,” Trevor says.

  “No?”

  “The offer is for you two only.”

  “But we’re a band,” Lacy says. “We’re—”

  “You’re a duo. Trust me.”

  “But—”

  Trevor sighs, chewing a mouthful of ice. “Listen, the bongo boy? I like his look, sure. Rich kid slumming it hard. Ghettocrombie. Not very original, but it could work. However, those bongos will not fly. So he’s out. And the bass player? Kid’s got some chops, but I mean, seriously? He’s got a great face for radio. And the legs? We decide to remake Wizard of Oz, I’ll get him a tryout with the Lollipop Guild. Butch up Munchkinland for sure. Other than that he’s a nonstarter. Sorry.”

  Lacy looks at me. I look at her. “So we just drop the rest of the band? Bang, they’re out?”

  Trevor signals for another drink, puts it on his corporate Amex. The bartender rolls his eyes and slams the glass down. “I know it’s not easy, but it happens all the time. You can’t carry deadweight in the biz. You got to think of yourself. Do what’s right for you. And the two of you? Believe me, you guys are what’s right.”

  “I guess we don�
�t owe them anything,” Lacy says slowly. “We’ve only been together, what, a month?”

  “We don’t owe them shit,” I agree.

  “So what’s next?” she asks.

  Trevor smiles. “I have some paperwork in the car for you to sign. They don’t like you after the screen test? Fine, you come home. They do like you, I’ll be your representation.”

  “Fifteen percent?” I say.

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m ready to sign,” Lacy says.

  “Me, too. Where’s a pen?”

  The sound system kicks in. It’s so loud Trevor practically has to scream for us to hear. So he screams.

  “Okay, but the other thing is, we need a story.”

  “What kind of story?”

  “You two sound good, you look hot, but that’s not enough. I need something to pitch you with. No offense, but I’m sure in a shit town like this you don’t have a whole lot of drama to dangle, am I right? So we work up character profiles, just to give you a little background.”

  “Well,” Lacy says, putting her arm around me. “Ritchie and I are lovers.”

  Trevor pulls out a flip pad and starts writing it down. “Good. I like it. Captain and Tennille. John Doe and Exene.”

  “Better yet,” Lacy says, “we were lovers, but then we had a huge fight and didn’t speak for months. Ritchie’s a thief on the side; that’s how we finance our band. I told him he has to quit it with the breaking and entering or we’re through.”

  “Love it!” Trevor says, scribbling away.

  “Yeah, I pretty much chose crime over her. I need the juice. Gotta have the action. But we both knew we couldn’t ever give up on the tunes.”

  “Nice. What else?”

  It’s such a good question.

  “Well, my mom’s a lesbian,” I say.

  Trevor frowns. “Sorry, don’t like it. We have sponsors. Walmart. Miracle Whip. No lesbians.”

  “Fine. Scratch that. Mom’s just divorced. Found religion after my father split for some blonde down in Texas.”

  “Now you’re talking.”