Two girls on stepladders were draping yellow and black streamers along a banner above the stage that read CHS HOMECOMERS—SHAKE YOUR BOOTY. Yeah, right: KC & the Sunshine Band. That was something Pete and I both knew: The music was changing, and rock ‘n’ roll was going down unless something came along and kicked its butt. From what I was hearing on the radio these days, mainstream rock had become a load of self-satisfied crap, mired in its own excess, bloated, bankrupt, and out of gas. Yeah, something needed to save rock ‘n’ roll, and it better come along and do it fast.
Rob, sitting backward with Sam on the row below the one occupied by me, Mick, and Yogi, suddenly leaned forward and waved a hand in my face. “You still with us, Daniel?”
I looked down into the angular Scandinavian face of our tall hippie bassist, a battered tan Stetson propped on his head, his long blond hair tucked behind his ears. He was wearing his favorite tie-dyed T-shirt, and his long fingers—the fingers that made difficult bass lines easy for him—were tapping away on a knee of his ragged Levi’s.
“Yeah, I’m listening,” I told him.
“Like I was saying, this Puente Harbor gig sounds cool in theory, but where the hell is this place?”
“I looked it up,” Mick said, breaking in before I could answer, “and it’s not bloody likely that Yogi’s babysitters will let him get that far away. The bleedin’ place is practically in Canada.”
One of Rob’s eyebrow’s twitched high. “No shit?”
“It’s just a little northwest of Seattle,” I clarified, shooting a sideways glance at Yogi’s chubby, wide-eyed face, a face framed by protruding ears and short rust-colored hair that was already receding at the temples. He was twirling a drumstick and humming to himself. He had apparently missed Mick’s snide remark. I looked back at our bassist.
Rob’s watery pale-blue eyes—bloodshot undoubtedly from an afternoon reefer—narrowed. “Ah. All the way up there?”
“It’s not that far,” I said. “A one-day drive, maybe two to be safe.”
“Don’t lie to us, mate,” Mick said. “It’s on the Olympic Peninsula, right across the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Victoria. But I doubt any of you wankers know where that is.”
“Fuca?” Yogi said, the drumstick stopping in mid-twirl. “Is it really pronounced that way?”
From the bleacher seat next to Rob, Sam hunched his linebacker’s shoulders, threatening to bust open his swirling paisley shirt, and pointed a finger toward Mick. “I know where Victoria is. And knock off that stupid accent.”
“Vic-tor-i-a,” Yogi suddenly sang out, oblivious and off-key. “Vic-tor-i-a. ”
Shit. This was already going worse than I had expected. I checked my watch—still forty-five minutes until the dance started. “It’s a good gig,” I said, trying to regain control of the conversation. “Astley said it could get us on the club circuit. Look, I’ve got to call him first thing tomorrow morning or we lose it. You guys really wanna play proms forever?”
“Who said we’d be doing this forever?” Mick said. “And we’ve got a good thing here. I’m getting laid; I’m getting high. Why go play for some poofters in Canada?” His voice, seemingly reinforced by the loudness of his bright-red polyester shirt and signature chartreuse scarf, echoed off the hard surfaces of the gym. Scanning the room, I saw that the dance committee’s adviser, a cranky woman who had been my sophomore English teacher, had entered the gym and was talking to the two girls hanging the streamers. If they hadn’t heard Mick already, they soon would.
“Let’s take this outside,” I suggested, and I was a little surprised they so easily followed me. We clambered down off the bleachers and went through a side door leading to the athletic fields behind the gym. After I pulled the door shut behind me, the five of us were alone and in the dark, except for the pale light of a moon streaming through tattered clouds. The guys gathered in a circle, breath condensing in the sharp October air. I lit a Marlboro and tempted its smoke into my lungs. As I did, I noticed my hands were shaking from the cross-tops I’d taken earlier.
“Look,” Rob said, flipping away stray strands of hair that had slipped from behind his ears, “Mick has a point. I mean, why burn all that energy driving to Washington for—what was it? Seven-hundred, eight-hundred bucks?—when we can make as much playing around here? That kind of bread will barely cover the narcotics.” He laughed, but I knew he was partly serious.
“There’s no place like home,” Yogi now sang out through the darkness, audibly clicking together the heels of his black high-tops.
I leaned back against the cold brick of the gym wall and kicked at tufts of damp grass. The cross-tops burning through my system cut both ways, and the elation that I’d felt earlier in the day now ate at my stomach. To make matters worse, Townshend’s jagged chords jumped back into my head, stabbing at my nagging hangover. C minor, B-flat, F.
I had expected Rob’s reluctance. After knowing him for so long, I could usually anticipate his reactions, and what I had learned over the years was that contrary to his hippielike appearance, Rob was dug in and avoided risks.
I’d known Rob Verlaine since early in our freshman year of high school, where I’d first met him late one day, literally bumping into him when we both turned a hallway corner from opposite directions. Rob had dropped the small stack of albums he was carrying.
“Hey, sorry,” I said, expecting an angry reaction.
But Rob looked at me with those translucent blue eyes and gave me a lazy smile, which I later learned hid more than it revealed. “It’s cool, man. Don’t sweat it.”
I helped him gather up the albums, glancing at the covers as I did: Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jefferson Airplane. Not my favorite bands—too ’60s spacey, too San Francisco psychedelic—but groups I respected for their dedication to the music. “Where you heading with these?”
With his free hand, Rob rubbed at the bridge of his prominent nose. “Just got ’em. I’m heading home to sort out the bass lines. Lesh and Casady play some pretty trippy stuff. Seriously, man.” He started to shamble off down the hallway.
Immediately sensing something intriguing in his taste in music, his peace-love-and-understanding demeanor, and his assumption that I’d know the names of the Dead and Airplane’s bassists, I caught up with him. At the same time, I realized that an opportunity had presented itself for moving my guitar, which I’d been banging on in private since Kevin had left for Vietnam, out of the bedroom.
“Hey, hold up a second,” I called out as he slowed to a stop. “I play guitar myself. How about I join you?”
Again the smile. “Well, I’m kind of doing it to explore my artistic inner self, you know, but if you’re hip to that, sure.”
And it was that simple, the beginning of a musical partnership, but one that would grow more complicated each day it existed, because neither Rob nor I was that simple.
So Rob’s reluctance about taking the gig didn’t surprise me, but the reluctance of the others, especially Yogi’s, did. What did he have to lose? But then I remembered Mick’s crack about Yogi’s babysitters. I looked at our drummer and asked, “How about you? You’re up for it, right?”
Yogi’s blank brown eyes stared back at me from across our little circle. Our roly-poly drummer was still living at home, where his uptight parents controlled him. Watching his Charlie Brown face, I couldn’t tell if he was mentally working out the problem of confronting them or thinking about something entirely different. It was always hard to tell with Yogi.
I continued to peer through the darkness at him. Even in the cold, he was wearing his usual green-striped tank top to free up his arms when he played, and his tennis shoes were untied, ready to pull off, along with his socks, to give his feet a better feel for the bass drum and hi-hat pedals. He didn’t look much like a rock star, but he was a hellacious drummer, and he was right for us, even if the other bands in town hadn’t wanted him. I needed him, but to my benefit, Yogi thought it was the other way around.
“How
about it, Yogi,” I repeated. “You’re with me, aren’t you?”
He pulled a Baby Ruth bar from a side pocket of his baggy jeans and ripped it open. “Well, I’d like to, Daniel, but you know, well, you know how it is.”
“Come on,” I said softly, knowing that he was referring to his folks. Although Yogi was only a year younger than the rest of us, he still seemed to approach life like an adolescent, letting others make decisions for him. Behind the unfocused eyes, he was a smart guy, able to tear down and rebuild a car engine, repair our amps and lighting equipment, and work his way through complex electronic schematics. But something was holding him back. I wasn’t sure what—maybe a lack of confidence caused by his overprotective mother. He’d never considered moving out of his parents’ house, and, as far as I knew, he’d never dated anyone. In many ways, he was like a beaten-down puppy, seeking an owner he could trust. At this moment, I knew he was looking to me to guide him, an unwise choice but one that worked to my advantage.
“Look, Yogi,” I said to him, “you owe me one.”
I didn’t need to say much more, because he knew what I meant. After all, I’d given him a chance to be something more than a misfit and a momma’s boy. He stopped messing with the candy bar and finally looked at me. “I don’t know. If you think—”
“You’re the backbone of the band, Yogi. Don’t let me down.”
“Well, I guess,” he said, “yeah, I guess I could. Nobody would miss me, would they?”
“They would, but it’s our gain.”
Yogi stared at me for a long moment, then said simply, “Whatever you say, Daniel.” His momentary look of focus faded away.
I now glanced sideways at our shag-headed lead singer, bobbing up and down beside me on the toes of his blue Adidas tennis shoes, and instinctively knew where to probe. And I had him to thank. Mick’s skill at manipulation, which I’d absorbed over the four years since he’d joined the band in high school, guided me to the right words: “So, tell me, Mick, what’s the problem? You nervous about something?”
“There’s no problem, mate. I just like it here. And I’m skint at the moment.”
“Is it the money, or are you really afraid that your father won’t let you go?”
“My dad?” His breath shot out in a cloud of moisture. “What does that old fart have to do with anything?”
Mick’s accent had momentarily disappeared, and I smiled, knowing I’d hit my mark. “I dunno. I thought maybe you were worried about his reaction. I know he doesn’t like you singing in the band.”
Mick thumped the side of the gym wall. “Bollocks to that! I do what I bloody want, and he knows it. And you know it, too. So just shut the fuck up about that, O.K., mate?”
His angry rebuttal, with accent back in place, brought on a moment of silence. Sam, who had been gazing out into the murkiness toward the football field, leaned into the circle. “Look, Daniel, I think I’m with Mick and Rob on this one. We’d have motel costs on the way up and back. And gas and food. I mean, gas is over sixty cents a gallon now. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not rolling in cash at the moment. Even scraping together change to buy new sax reeds is tough right now.”
“And I’ve got classes at the JC next week,” Rob added. “Maybe we should pass on this gig. We’ve got gigs lined up here anyhow.”
As I felt my opportunity slipping away, something clutched at my gut. Was I wrong? Wouldn’t the music save me? My head tilted back onto the wall, and I found myself staring up at the dingy moon. My hands continued to shake, reminding me of the price I paid for trying to feel good. The trick, I knew, was to keep breathing. While studying the moon, I took a couple of deep breaths and considered my next move.
“Hey!” Mick suddenly bounced into the center of the circle, shattering my thoughts. Bobbing around like a boxer, Mick jabbed a finger in turn at Rob and Sam. “Oh, bloody hell,” he said in a needling voice, “what a couple of poncy poseurs.”
“What the hell you talking about?” Sam shot back, brushing Mick’s hand away from his face.
“What’s a poseur?” Yogi asked.
“Daniel’s got it sussed,” Mick said, ignoring them. “We’re the best band around here. Why are we wasting our time playing for prom queens? Bollocks to the money. This is our chance, mates. This is what we worked for, idn’t? I’m going! ”
“Chill out, Mick,” Rob said. “I thought you were against it.”
“I’m bloody going,” Mick insisted.
I smiled to myself and made a mental note that I should always follow my instincts, at least with Mick. Push one of his buttons and you’ll always get a reaction, maybe not the one you want, but you’ll get one. Mick could be unpredictably dangerous, but now, as I watched him bear down on Sam and Rob with energy that wouldn’t subside until late into the night, I didn’t care. He was going to Puente Harbor, and that’s all that mattered.
Two down, two to go. I pulled my Army surplus jacket closer for warmth and looked across our little circle at Sam. He had absolutely nothing to lose. When he had failed to get a football scholarship after high school, his immediate choices had been reduced to playing in the band or working construction. Sam wasn’t one to avoid hard work, but, hey, you choose. Besides, there just weren’t jobs available in Creedly’s stunned post-Vietnam economy.
Sam Estola had been well known at our high school. And in white-bread Creedly, Sam, with his dark Latin features, muscled body, and sweeping jet-black hair, was hard to miss. He ran with the jocks, played middle linebacker on the high school football team, and led the sax section in the school’s stage band. And he had been, and still was, something else the rest of us weren’t: Popular. Mick knew this, and it bugged the shit out of him. And as I watched Sam eye Mick, who was still bobbing up and down next to me, I realized the unspoken competition that existed between the two of them. If Mick was willing to go to Puente Harbor, I figured Sam would also go.
“C’mon, Sammy,” I said, “aren’t you ready to get outta here? See the world? I mean, Mick’s ready to go.”
“I dunno. I was thinking about working over the winter.”
“You’re kidding. Where?”
“My dad said he could get me on at his job site.”
I sighed. This was new information. “Doing what?”
He avoided my eyes. “A gofer. Hauling sheet rock and shit like that.”
I let the depressing concept hang in the chilly air for a moment. “Is that what you want to do? Haul sheet rock? And, anyhow, we’ll only be gone for a week.”
Sam gazed down at the grass separating us and cracked the knuckles of his thick, strong fingers. His straight hair, glistening black in the moonlight like the paint job on his Camaro, hung limp against the tops of his shoulders. Finally, he looked up at me. “What the hell. I don’t want Mick calling me a poseur. And if he does it again, I’m gonna stick my foot up his ass.”
Mick grinned and pointed across at him. “I take it back, Sammy old man, although the foot thing sounds interesting.”
I turned my attention back to Rob, who had grown increasingly stubborn about everything since he’d started living with Candi six months earlier. Candi was a lot like Rob—Scandinavian blonde, smart, and attractive. But unlike Rob, she knew it and used it to manipulate him. And Candi, an overachiever who did everything she tried just a little bit better than everyone else, was one of those people who expected their definition of success to apply to those around her. Candi had high expectations for Rob, and I doubted that those expectations included him sticking with the band over the long haul. Even so, I liked Candi’s quick wit and ready laugh, and I knew Rob really cared about her, but I was beginning to sense problems in the way Rob’s face tightened whenever Candi’s name came up in band discussions. I guessed that he was having trouble figuring out how to please her while keeping everyone else happy.
I thought for another long moment before speaking. The band was important to Rob, although I knew it was much more important to me. Rob appreciated roc
k music as an art form, finding the creative side of it fascinating, exploring how his bass could fit rhythmically and melodically into musical puzzles that changed shape with every song. But I feared that Rob was riding with the band as long as it was relatively painless; that he’d slide into the mainstream when the time was right.
In some ways, though, what Rob brought to the band was purer than what motivated the others. With Mick, the band was simply a vehicle for expressing his ego and attracting girls, even though I guessed that subconsciously his primary motivation was to prove that he could move the masses as mightily as his preacher father. Sam, on the other hand, was in it for no other reason than to have fun and earn a little extra money. Mick and Sam would stay with the band as long as the getting was good. Only Yogi, who saw the band as the only family that really cared about him, was in it for as long as I needed him.
But the problem at the moment was our bassist. “Well, Rob,” I said, “it’s up to you. We’ve always been in this thing together. You go or none of us go. And you know we’ll do great up there.”
Rob folded his arms. “Yeah, sure.”
“We will. Look, we’ve worked hard to get this chance. Some of us have quit school to do this.”
“That’s cool, but I didn’t, you know.”
Mick thumped the wall again. “Oh, bloody hell—”
“Shut up, Mick.” I lowered my voice. “Rob, I realize you’re still dealing with school, but this gig is our chance to find out if we’re really good. We’ve played every school and club around here until they’re sick of us. Nobody can touch us. You know it and I know it, but we need to get out there where the big fish live. We’ve gotta swim out deeper into the ocean.”
He petulantly flipped his hair, thankfully ignoring my inane analogy. “But why now? We can always do a road trip some other time.”
“Maybe. But Astley won’t give us another chance if we blow this off. If we don’t take it, we’ll all be stuck here. We can pull the money together for the trip. It won’t cost that much. Yogi, Sam, and Mick are up for it—”
Getting in Tune Page 2