Chapter 23: Can We Talk?
Terry arrived at the Warehouse first. As he turned
on the lights and set up the instruments, he breathed a sigh of satisfaction.
He loved the solitude, the enclosed silence of the place, before everyone came
and filled the space with human sounds and life. He sat down and tuned all the
guitars, made sure the drums were tight and the keyboards ready to play. Once
everything was satisfactory, he sat down with Rob’s Washburn bass and started
plucking out a bass color that came in an hour before he arrived. He was lost
in the music, following where the muse lead him, when he heard a guitar join
him. Terry smiled and started dueling with Eric. For ten minutes straight, they
traded licks, Terry leading the way at one point then Eric blazing the sonic
trail with Terry following. During the whole exchange, Terry never looked up,
but he played as if he could see what Eric was playing on his guitar. With a
flurry of notes, they finally stopped.
“Good morning, ‘Cuz.” Eric said.
“Good morning.” Terry answered and walked to the
tape recorder set up by a speaker.
“That was nice.” Eric commented. “Was that something
new?”
“Yeah, it came in this morning.” Terry grinned and
placed the bass back on its rack. “With a little work, it’s gonna be a jamming
tune. I can feel it.”
Eric just nodded. Terry was bothered by Eric’s
nonchalance. Usually, he was more excited about a new jawn.
“What’s on your mind, Groove?”
“You’ve been blocked for a little while now.” Eric
explained. “Right when things went downhill with Dom, the music inside you
stopped, but now that you’re both cool again, you can write music again.” He
shrugged. “What’s up with that?”
“What’s up with you not liking Dom?” Terry demanded.
“I can already see where this is going: you think she’s affecting my work.”
“Isn’t she?” Eric said. “The girl’s got your nose so
wide open a 747 could pull a u-turn.”
“I’ve been blocked before, Groove.”
“Not like this, Terry. You told me yourself, every
other time you’ve been blocked, you kept on until you broke through. When this
sitch with Dom came up, you didn’t even try.”
“What d’you want me to say, Eric? I’m in love with
her? Okay, I am. I love, Dom, Groove. I know you don’t like her, but it’s not
up to you.”
Eric sighed. “I have a bad feeling about her Terry. Gutbuzz
bad.”
Suddenly, Terry didn’t feel so good.
Eric had this thing he called a ‘gutbuzz’ (which he
described as feeling like bees were buzzing in his stomach). It came up
whenever something really good was gonna happen or something really bad. Eric
was usually right when it happened. Terry sincerely hoped that Eric was wrong
this time.
“When?”
“The same day Wanda pulled that stupid shit during
rehearsal a week ago.”
“Maybe you’re wrong this time, Groove.”
“I hope so.” Eric grinned. “Anyway, I have some more
happy news: I entered us in the Battle
“Word?”
“Straight up.” Eric said. “It takes place in about
two weeks and the grand prize is a recording contract with Musicmax records.”
Terry smiled and said, “Yeah. That’ll be good. When
are you telling everybody?”
“Today, right before we start. Hopefully, that’ll
give us some focus.”
“No doubt.” Terry agreed.
“No doubt, what?” Lisa asked as she bopped happily
into the warehouse.
“Well, look who took their happy pills this
morning--,” Terry observed. “—and remembered how to set their alarm clock too.”
“Bite me, a’ight?”
“You are all shiny with happy face this morning.”
Eric added. “What’s up with that?”
A dreamy look and a loopy grin lit up Lisa’s face.
“Roger.”
“Oh.”
“Lemme guess--,” Terry said. “—he got the job done?”
“My baby worked me like a Hebrew slave.” Lisa
confirmed. “He started out slow, then he grabbed my hips and…”
“Did Terry tell you about the contest?” Eric
interjected.
“What contest?” she asked.
“Yeah, what contest?” Terry threw a ‘You-Ain’t-Slick’
look at Groove.
“The Battle
“Alright, now!” Lisa shouted. By this time, the rest
of the band had walked in and Terry and Groove made the general announcement.
Needless to say, the rest of the rehearsal was focused and, thanks to the
dawning of hope, energized.
(c)2014 Courtney & W.L. Sherrod
No comments:
Post a Comment