Road Rash (21 page)

He finally came back.

“I’ve got a few questions,” he said. “Like, when did you do it? Where did you do it? How did you do it? But what I really want to know is,
why
did you do it?”

So I told him the whole story. It took me quite a while, especially explaining the why, and when I was done, he sat there for a long time, looking up at the ceiling. Finally, he looked at me.

“Okay. When I first heard it, yeah, I was pissed. That song was personal, man. You should have asked before you messed with it.” I started to say something but he held up his hand. “Good intentions or not, that was my tune. And you absolutely need permission before you do something crazy like submit it for a CD. Right?”

He was staring at me and I finally realized it wasn’t a rhetorical question. “Uh, yeah … right. Of course.”

He nodded. “Good. Just making sure. But what really matters is the intent. If you were just doing this to score a track on a CD to impress your buddies back in LR or something, well … we’d have a problem.”

I swallowed, and it was my turn to nod. I don’t know why, but I’d rather have just about anyone else but Glenn mad at me.

“So, where’d you go?” I finally asked.

“Just walking around, thinking about it. And listening to it.” He smiled for the first time. “If you’d butchered that tune, man, I’d hammer you. But you gave it just what it needed. I like it. And now …” He paused. “And now it’s going to be on the Wild 107 CD. And it’s going to get some airplay.”

“Uh … that’s a good thing, right?” I asked, still a little worried.

“That’s a
great
thing. Seriously.” Then he reached over and gave me a hug. “So thanks.”

I swear, for the second time in a week I was about to cry in public.

I’d just put my phone away when Danny came up to me.

“Hey, Zach, can you send me that tune? The one by KJ? I want to check it out again.” I was in the club, getting ready to do a little maintenance on my drums.

I hesitated. “Uh, okay.” I took out my phone and sent it. “Done. But don’t …”

Too late—he was up and moving. “Gotta go … thanks, bro!” And he was gone.

I mentally shrugged. Oh well, you can’t go around walking on eggshells and treating the world with kid gloves … or whatever that whole goat/egg metaphor is supposed to be. Right?

Whatever. I went to the stage to swap out my snare head—nothing makes a drumset sound new like a minty, freshly tuned head on the snare. I finally got it to that magical place where it had a sharp crack on top but wasn’t so tight that you lose that big fat meaty tone underneath. Then I touched up the tuning on the toms. It’s funny—most people think drums are just round shells with heads on either side and you just whack the crap out of ’em and that’s it. But you can make even a budget drumset sound pretty damn good if you make the effort. (Which was a good thing in my case, believe me.)

I’d started playing in school during fifth grade. I never really had any formal lessons—I just screwed around in the band room during lunch until I learned how to keep a basic beat. The music
teacher heard me one day and I guess he was desperate, because before you knew it I was drafted into the school band. So at first I played the school’s drumset, but that didn’t work when I wanted to play outside of school. My dad made me a deal—he’d pay for half of my first set if I saved up for the rest. I ended up getting a secondhand beginner’s kit from a kid down the block who’d gotten it for Christmas but had never really learned how to play. That was good for a year or so, but in junior high I got in a garage band and we actually played a few parties, so I needed something better. I took all my gig money and found my current kit on Craigslist.

At first I wasn’t too happy with the sound. I took it to the local drum shop and Howard—the owner—took pity on me, even though I hadn’t purchased it there. I bought new heads from him and he helped me install them and gave me a lesson in drum tuning. When he was done, he held up a tom and smacked it. Instead of the dead little
thud
it had been making, now it had that big fat
doooouum
sound. Wow. Ever since, I’ve made sure to keep those puppies in tune.

Anyway, after I got done tweaking my set I headed back to my room. When I got upstairs, I heard loud voices coming from the girls’ room. The door was open and when I walked by I could see the whole gang in there, so I popped in. Brad was raving away about something, but when he saw me he stopped cold.

“Well, well … there he is now. So, what part of
no
doesn’t your little brain understand?”

Huh …?
“What are you talking about?”

“You know damn well what I’m talking about. ‘If Dad says no, go ask Mom,’ right? Well, that kind of behind-the-back crap doesn’t work with me, man!” He was totally pissed, but I still didn’t have a clue.

“One more time—what the hell are you talking about?”

“Don’t give me that shit! I turn down your precious little demo, so you try to get the others to gang up on me. Well, let me tell you something.” He looked around the room. “Hell, let me tell you
all
something. You think you can dump all over me and get away with it just because there’s more of you? Well, guess what—this ain’t a goddamn democracy. And you know why?” He was full-on raging now. “Huh? Do any of you even have a
clue
?” He whipped his head around, glaring at each of us. “Because you aren’t worth shit without me, that’s why!”

I’ve never seen anyone actually “storm out of a room” before, but that’s exactly what he did, knocking over his chair in the process and slamming the door behind him.

Dead freakin’ silence …

“So …,”
I finally said. “Anyone want to fill me in?”

“Well,” Danny said, “I listened to that song again, and then I ran into Jamie. I played it for her, and she liked it, too. So we played it for Brad, and he just came unglued. Big-time. That’s all I know.”

“What song?” Glenn asked.

“That tune Zach found, ‘Every Day.’ ”

Glenn just looked at me and raised his eyebrows.
Shit
.

I turned to the others. “Here’s the deal. I’ll try to make it short, but it’s kinda convoluted, so hang with me.” I took a deep breath and told them the story of how and why I’d tracked the
song and what Brad must have thought when Danny showed up with it, wanting to cover it.

When I was done, they were quiet for a minute. Then Danny said, “You’re right, that’s one convoluted story, bro. So you tracked that cut?”

“I started with Glenn’s guitar and vocal demo. I just added some stuff to flesh it out.”

“Well, it sounds great.”

“Danny’s right,” Amber added. “It rocks. I loved it.” She tried to stifle a big yawn.

“Yeah, I can tell how excited you are,” I said.

She looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry … long night.”

Jamie looked over at Glenn. “You wrote that.” It was more a statement than a question. He just nodded. “That’s a wonderful song,” she said.

As long as I was in full-confession mode, I decided to spill the rest. I held up my hand like a kid in class. “Um … there’s more.” They looked at me like,
Holy shit, what else?
“I was totally pissed about the way Brad treated me and the song. So I sent it to Don Davis, back in Los Robles.”

“The DJ?”

“Yeah, they were taking submissions for their annual
Best in the Rockin’ West
CD, so I figured what the hell. And, well … they picked it. It’s going to be the opening track on this year’s CD—drops in a couple of weeks.”

“Bro, that’s awesome!” Danny said. “For both of you.”

Jamie gave Glenn a hug. “I’m so happy for you.” She looked at me. “And I’m sure that Brad’ll come around sooner or later. He always does—sometimes it just takes a while.…”

I wasn’t at all sure about that one, but I didn’t want to be negative. “Uh … Brad doesn’t know about the Wild 107 CD thing, so maybe we shouldn’t say anything. At least for now?”

They all nodded—we were definitely on the same page, but I was still feeling uneasy about the whole thing. Brad had been
flaming
when he’d left.

I went back to my room and sat on that funk-o-matic sofa, avoiding the spring at all costs. And thought. Mostly what went through my head was
This is the weirdest day ever
.

As it turns out, it wasn’t over yet. Not even.

I couldn’t take sitting around that toilet of a room any longer, so I went out in search of coffee and a bite … and maybe a clue as to what to do next.

When I got back from eating, I figured I’d swing by Brad’s room and see if I could patch things up. Brad wasn’t there, so I went next door to the girls’ room. Nope. But Jamie and Glenn were there.

“Anyone seen Brad?” I asked.

“No, that was going to be my question,” Jamie said.

“Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

I didn’t know where to start. “I feel pretty stupid about this whole thing.…” They shut me down.

“It’s not your fault,”
they said together at exactly the same time.

“Hey, that was pretty cool,” I said. “Could you try it again, in harmony?” That got a smile out of them. “We can talk about blame later. But if either of you sees Brad, could you tell him I’d like to talk to him … I need to try and clear things up.”

“Thanks,” said Jamie quietly. “I’ll tell him.”

Glenn looked sideways at her, then back at me. “Dude, sometimes I think you’re the oldest guy in this band, instead of the other way around.” He paused. “But then you’ll come out with something like
‘And don’t come back!’
and remind us that you’re still our lovable little brother.”

They were both laughing when I left. As I went out the door, Jamie called out, “Zach?”

“Yeah …”

“We’re not laughing
at
you, we’re laughing
with
you. Right?”

“Yeah …”

Okay, so if Brad wasn’t going to come to me, then I guess it was my job to go to him. I figured I’d go look in the nearby bars—he was on foot, so that shouldn’t be too hard, right? Maybe not, if you weren’t in Butte, Montana … where bars apparently grow on every corner like weeds after a rainstorm. Somewhere in the middle of making the rounds—with no luck—I got an email.