On the drive over to rehearsal, I told Rick that Jen5 and I were officially dating.
All he said was, "About time."
"Why am I the only person that didn't see this coming?" I asked.
"Do you know what an idiot savant is?" asked Rick.
"I'm pretty sure you're going to tell me, and it's going to be insulting," I said.
"Kind of. It's someone who's really good at one thing and sucks at everything else."
"Oh, right, like I'm such a brilliant musician that I'm totally clueless about everything else."
"Nah, I was thinking that you're really brilliant about being an idiot about girls."
"That's why I have a gayfriend," I told him. "You can advise me because you're more connected to your feminine side."
Rick raised an eyebrow. "Gayfriend?" he asked.
"I just made it up," I said.
"I can tell. And anyway, sullen emo boy, you're way more feminine than I am. I'll bet you even shower daily."
"Uh… yeah," I said. "You don't?"
He leaned back in his seat, looked out the window, and smirked. "My natural scent is far more appealing."
"To who?" I asked.
The Parks and Rec building where we rehearsed was downtown in an old, faded blue cement-block structure with hardly any windows. There were lots of meeting rooms, a gym, and probably a lot of other stuff I didn't know about. The only thing that I really cared about was the old dance studio in the back where we rehearsed.
As soon as we walked through the heavy front door of the building, we could hear the sound of hard drumming coming from all the way down the hall.
I looked at Rick.
He shrugged and said, "Guess TJ found out about you and Fiver."
"That's way too loud," I said. "We're totally going to get yelled at." We were always getting yelled at by people who worked there. It seemed like they might be getting pretty close to kicking us out.
"Come on," I said. "We better quiet him down before Joe gets here."
We stopped in front of the closed door to the dance studio and just stood there for a second, listening to TJ totally murder the drum kit.
"You have to admit," said Rick. "Romantic angst seems to work for him. He sounds like he's on fire in there."
"This is going to be awkward, isn't it?" I asked.
There was a crash from inside that was so loud, it sounded like TJ had split a cymbal in half.
"What gives you that idea?" asked Rick.
I opened the door and hot, sweaty air slapped me in the face, followed by the unmuffled sound of TJ whaling on his kit in a way I didn't even think he was capable of. The bass felt like a kick in the chest, the cymbals like needles in my ears, the snare like a punch in the mouth, and the whole thing came together like someone had just stuck my wet finger in an electrical socket. I almost couldn't believe it was really him. His T-shirt was off and wrapped around his head in a makeshift headband to keep sweat out of his eyes. He was usually way too skinny, hunched, and zitty to get away with being shirtless, but at that moment it was just part of a picture of a guy totally plugged into his music and kicking the shit out of his inner demons. I knew I was supposed to stop him. Calm him down. But this was what Gramps had been talking about. In that moment, I was witnessing TJ touch the moon. And how could you stop something that clearly brilliant and still call yourself a musician? So Rick and I just drifted into the room, mesmerized by the sound and raw power.
"STOP!"
TJ jerked to a halt, his eyes a little glazed.
Joe stood in the doorway, his face a reddish-purple snarl. Laurie stood a little bit behind him, cringing like a puppy.
"Are you all idiots?" screamed Joe. He stalked into the room, his chains making little ching sounds with each step of his steel-toed boots. His fists were clenched so tight that the knuckles were white. "Do you want us to get kicked out of here?"
"Sorry," said TJ as he mopped sweat off his face. He didn't seem bothered by Joe's tantrum. In fact, he seemed even more relaxed and peaceful than usual.
Joe stalked closer. "If we get kicked out of here because of your dumb ass," he said, getting right up in TJ's face, "I will take you apart."
"Okay," said TJ, utterly indifferent.
Joe stood there, glaring at him for a moment, his jaw grinding back and forth, his forehead pushed forward in a caveman frown. TJ just adjusted his cymbals and snare, which had gotten a little out of whack during his extended drum solo. He didn't even seem to notice that Joe was right in front of him, ready to throw him through the mirrored wall.
After a few incredibly long moments of silence, Joe said, "Put your shirt back on, you scrawny faggot." Then he spun around on his heel and walked over to his mic stand. Laurie sat down on a stool next to him, but her eyes were on TJ. She was staring at him with a wide-eyed expression, like she had never seen him before. Maybe Joe noticed too, because he tapped her on the forehead with his finger and said, "Hey."
She flinched a little, then looked up at him.
"Get my songbook," he said, and gestured over to the door where he had dropped his bag.
As she walked over and started rummaging through it, he turned back to us.
"Okay," he said. "After Saturday's suckfest, I decided it was time for me to take charge of things. Maybe that's been the whole problem. You guys clearly need a leader. I thought maybe you could handle at least some of the responsibility, but I guess not."
At this point, Laurie came back with a little notebook. He took it from her and started flipping through it. She went and sat back down on her stool.
"Uh," I said. "Joe, what are you talking about?"
"I'm talking," said Joe, still flipping through his notebook, "about dragging you guys kicking and screaming into being a real band. Starting with"—he stopped and looked at a specific page in his notebook, then turned the page in my direction. Like I could read his handwriting from five feet away—"new songs."
A strangled noise came from Rick. I looked over at him and he was frowning and chewing on his lip. That was what he always did when he was trying not to laugh. I turned back to Joe.
"New songs?" I asked. I had to have misheard him.
"Yeah," he said. "You're not the only one who can write music, you know."
"Right," I said.
"What's the matter, Sammy? Can't handle a little challenge? Afraid someone else could be a better Conor Oberst wannabe?"
"Uh, no, Joe," I said. "If you wrote a song, that's cool." I didn't say that because I was scared of him. It was because I just couldn't believe that he had actually written something. "Let's hear it."
Joe smirked like he had just won some major victory. "Let me see your guitar." Then he held out his big, meaty hand.
"My guitar?"
"I'm not going to sing a cappella, you idiot," he said. "Come on, Gollum. I won't hurt your Precious."
I must have been in shock by that point, because I actually handed over my '61 Gibson SG reissue. Joe grabbed it by the neck with a rough carelessness that made me wince. Gramps always said that a man treats his instrument like he treats his woman. Looking at Laurie, huddled meekly in the corner, it looked like Gramps might be right on that one.
Joe slung the strap over his head and plugged in. Then he let out a few dirty chords. Not that I'm some chord purist, but if you're playing them open and letting them ring out, they should probably sound like a bunch of notes that go together. But he nodded to himself, pleased.
"My stuff is real hardcore," he said. "You guys are going to shit your pants when you hear this."
"Probably," muttered Rick quietly.
"You want a pick?" I asked, fishing around in my pocket for one.
"Nah, that's why I have such a long thumbnail. I don't need a pick." He held up his thumb to show us. I hadn't noticed before, but it was really long. And dirty yellow.
"Wow," said Rick. "Just… wow."
"Shut up and listen," said Joe. Then he let out another half-tuned chord and began to sing in a slow, heavy, measured beat, "Welcome to the sanity closet, you know we are here!"
There was a pause as he changed his fingering on the guitar to a different chord. Then he strummed again. "Pulling down the wishful thinking of the young in years!"
Another slow chord change.
"Stepping down on their emotions, heedless of their tears!"
Another chord change, but it went sour. Joe cursed under his breath, adjusted his fingers, then tried again, this time mostly right.
"Greeting their pleas of mercy with a thousand leers!"
Then he just banged at the open strings, screaming "REFORM!" over and over again for a few minutes.
"And you get the idea," he said, waving his hand at us. "That's just the first verse. Obviously, I'm not a guitar player really. It was just to give you an idea. So?" He looked at us, half expectant, half daring us to say something negative.
"Uh… ," said TJ.
"Who knew," said Rick. "Who knew you were capable of… that."
Joe's face crinkled up into a snarl. "You know what, fuck you guys. I'm out of here." He practically threw my guitar at me and I barely managed to keep from dropping it.
"Come on, Laurie," he snapped.
Then he grabbed his bag and started walking to the door.
"Wait," I said.
He stopped.
"Come on, man, don't be like that," I said. "We can work with this."
I heard a hoarse "What?" escape from Rick's throat. I ignored him and looked pleadingly at TJ to back me up, hoping he understood that if Joe walked out that door, Tragedy of Wisdom was dead. Then I turned back to Joe.
"It's not really our sound, okay, sure," I said. "But maybe we can work it in. Maybe we can meet in the middle somewhere."
"Yeah." TJ nodded, a little unsure. "A totally new sound no one's ever heard before."
"Or would want to hear again," muttered Rick.
"Seriously, Joe," I said. "Let's at least try."
He let us squirm for a full minute before he finally rolled his eyes, dropped his bag on the floor, and came back over.
"Yeah, okay," he said, like it didn't really matter. "It was just a basic structure, of course. I expect you guys to fill in the details and stuff."
"Exactly," I said. "So what were those chords? E-A-G-A?"
"Okay," Rick said during the drive back home after rehearsal. "What I want to know is, how do you greet somebody with a thousand leers?" Then he burst into the belly laugh he had been holding in for hours.
"I know, I know," I said. "It's just one song."
"I don't believe you," he said. "You were throwing a fit about him naming the band, and now you're letting him write a song? What is wrong with you?"
"I just… ," I started. "He was going to walk out of the band. That would have been it. No more band. I need a band."
"But we don't need him," said Rick. "He sucks. You should be leading anyway."
"We've talked about this a million times," I said. "I can't sing in front of people."
"That was just the one time. At that crappy open mic."
"It was the only time," I said.
"Oh, come on," he said. "It wasn't that bad."
"It was the most embarrassing moment of my life."
"Sammy, you just have to—"
"No," I said. "I don't want to talk about it."
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