Road Rash (8 page)

“You
what
?”

My dad couldn’t believe it, either. He started to go off on me big-time, so I jumped in quick. “Let me explain, okay?”

“I just don’t see how the hell you could quit the first day. You didn’t even give it a chance. And after Jerry did me a favor by hiring you.”

“Yeah, and
Jerry
seems like a great guy, who I’d be
happy
to work for.”

That made him back up the bus a little. “Okaaaay.…”

“But I wasn’t working for Jerry.…” So I explained the whole story all over again, pretty much the same as what I’d told Kimber but I included the audition call from Glenn. (All right, I left out the part about me throwing my sweaty shirt in Chris’s face, because I didn’t want my dad going off on a tangent about burning my bridges. And I didn’t just burn that particular bridge—I freakin’
nuked
it.)

“Look,” I finally said, “you agreed that I got a bad deal from the Sock Monkeys. I’m a good drummer and I should be playing in a band, not just spinning my wheels at some dead-end job. But the
good
news is, I got a call to audition for Bad Habit. That doesn’t happen every day. So when I get the chance to try out for the best band in town, what am I supposed to do?”

I thought he’d see my point for sure on that one, but the groove wasn’t quite that smooth. “Honestly,” he said, “I don’t
think that’s such great news. Those guys are a couple of years older than you. Are any of them going to college?”

I didn’t say anything. College was a big deal to my dad. And my mom. And Kimber—she talked about it all the time. And maybe even to me … when I thought about it. But what did that have to do with playing music?

“I think it’s important who you associate with,” he went on, sounding like Nate with his dogs-and-fleas speech. “And I think you’re slanting this whole thing—if you really wanted to, I’m sure there’s a way you could do the audition and still keep the job.”

God, wasn’t he listening? “That’s exactly my point! Any
normal
boss would at least try and work something out—it’s only an hour or two. But no, this guy is like the Yard Nazi. He
enjoys
the tiny amount of power he has, and he gets off on pushing those poor guys around.”

“Let’s get one thing straight,” my dad said. “Even if you join another band, you’re still going to find a real job this summer. Period.”

One good thing about the audition was I didn’t have to deal with all my gear. They already had a drum kit in their practice room—a converted garage at their singer’s house—which made it easy. It was your basic five-piece set, pretty similar to what I had—all I had to bring was my stick bag.

“Hey, man, how’s it going?” Glenn said when I walked in. “Glad you could make it.” He introduced me to the other people in the room, starting with the guy who’d opened the door when I’d knocked … the lead singer. “This is Brad Halstead.”

He looked like the epitome of a Cal Coast surfer dude—tall, tan, and blond—except that he seemed to prefer leather jackets and skinny jeans over board shorts and sandals.

Brad nodded. “Hey.”

“This is Jamie Davenport.”

She smiled. “Hi, Zach.”

You know how you’ll see some girls onstage and they look hot, with all the lighting and makeup and hair and stuff, and
then you see them up close after the show and it’s, uh … not so much? Jamie was the exception. Yeah, she looked good up onstage, with her Hayley-Williams-as-a-brunette thing going on, but it didn’t fade as you got closer. It got stronger. Especially when she was smiling at you with those bright blue eyes. Like now. I found myself smiling back, until Glenn got my attention with the last member of the band.

“And Daniel Mendoza,” he said.

“Call me Danny,” Daniel said. He looked more like a motorcycle mechanic than a musician … which meant he looked like what he was: a killer bass player. Ponytail, beard, tats, and all.

“Why don’t you take a second to get the drums the way you like ’em,” Glenn said, “and then we’ll blow through some tunes.”

“Sure.” I sat behind the kit. Whoa … the last guy to play these sure sat a lot higher than I did. I adjusted the throne and moved a couple of the cymbals. I tapped the toms—they had pretty good tone. The snare was tuned a little low for my taste, so I grabbed a key out of my stick bag and cranked up the pitch to give it more of a crack. The kick sounded fine. Fine enough, anyway—there was no way to really dial in the sound I wanted quickly, so why stress about it?

I’ll admit I was a little nervous. No—I was a
lot
nervous. Usually I was relaxed once I was behind the kit, but I wanted this gig bad. Hell, my hands were shaking, and that never happened. Okay … relax … deep, slow breath …

“All right, I’m good to go,” I said.

“Good,” Glenn said. “Do you know ‘Are You Gonna Go My Way?’ ”

“Yeah, I’ve seen you guys play it.”

He nodded. “Great.” He counted it off, and we jumped into it. What immediately popped into my mind was that intricate thing Nate had done on the toms, so I tried to do something similar. It kinda worked, but it was a struggle to make it fit. Definitely not as solid as it could have been. When it was over, Brad and Danny looked at each other but didn’t say anything.

“Okay,” Glenn said. “How about ‘Times Like These’?”

I nodded. “Sure.” I’d heard it on the radio, but that was it. He started it on guitar and I jumped in where I thought I should. Oops—too early. As I started to stress about that, I realized that this little opening section was in 7/4. By the time I figured out that it was in an odd time signature, I had the beat backward. Not the end of the world to fix, and at a gig probably ninety-five percent of the people in the audience would never realize something was wrong, but it freaked me out. So I tried to make up for it by putting in some flashy stuff to show them I had skills. I made it to the end of the song, but it was pretty rough. And Danny never even came close to putting his foot up on the monitor cabinet, if you know what I mean.

“Sorry about that,” I said when it was over. “I got kinda lost there at the top.”

“No big,” Glenn replied.

Danny came over and started showing me how the pattern was supposed to go for that last song. I was trying to pay attention, but out of the corner of my eye I could see Brad talking to Glenn. I couldn’t hear everything, but I could tell he wasn’t real happy.

Glenn said something to Brad and walked over to me, and Danny went to go adjust his amp or something. “How’s it going?” Glenn asked quietly.

“Okay.… Well, maybe I’m trying a little too hard,” I admitted.

“Man, I’m glad to hear you say that, because that’s exactly what’s going on.” As he talked, he started pulling the cymbals off the stands. Holy cow—was this his way of letting me know that my audition was over? “You’re overthinking it.…” There went the crash cymbal. “I’ve seen you play.…” He pulled the rack toms from their mounts. “And I know you’re a real solid drummer.…” He stacked the small toms on the floor tom and pulled it aside so that none of them were playable. Nothing left but the kick, snare, and hi-hats. “So …,” he finished, “just play a solid groove. That’s all. Chops are cool in the right place, but a band lives or dies by its pocket.
Comprende?
”

“Got it.”

“What do you want to do?”

“How about we try ‘Go My Way’ again?”

“Sounds good.”

This time I figured the hell with it—I’d approach it like I was just doing another gig with the Sock Monkeys. No more trying to channel their old drummer, no more trying to impress anyone. Just lay it down, like always.

I started clicking my sticks loudly in time, and everyone looked over. Hell, I was the drummer—it was my job to set the tempo and count it off, right? “One! Two! One … two … three … four …” On the
four
I slammed my snare and dove into the song, just hammering it out. I looked at Danny, watching—and listening to—what he was doing. He started
nodding back in time. I could feel the vibe—much better. Jamie was smiling, and Brad wasn’t exchanging worried looks with anyone—everyone was too busy getting into it.
This
was how it was supposed to be—all of us working together in sync, like a team.

When it was over, Glenn nodded. “Exactly.”

We did three or four more songs, and I approached them all with the same attitude. That’s not to say I just played a bone-head simple beat to everything. I threw in some cool kick and snare syncopation when it fit, and I tried to hit all the accents with the rest of the band. But I didn’t worry about showing all my chops at once. I just tried to lay down the fattest, most danceable, most in-the-pocket groove that I could play. I felt like I’d won a moral victory when Danny spent most of the last couple tunes in front of the drumset, locking eyes with me and rocking hard. When we were done playing, he leaned over the drums and bumped fists with me.

After I’d packed up my sticks and was doing that awkward stand-around-not-knowing-what-to-do-next thing, Glenn came over. “So, what do we think?” he said.

“I think I owe you, man. Thanks.”

“There’s nothing I told you that you didn’t already know.” He looked at me. “You’re you. And that’s a good thing. So be you.”

I was in the middle of trying to decide if that was stupid or brilliant when Brad walked up. “Thanks for coming by,” he said. “We’re glad we could hear you play.” He stuck out his hand. “Take care, Zach.”

I shook his hand. “Thanks for having me,” I said.

He smiled. “We’ll call you when we decide something.”

And the next thing you know, I was out the door. Boy,
that
wrapped up quick. Talk about mixed signals … I wasn’t quite sure if I’d blown it big-time at the beginning or if I’d managed to pull it out of the fire. But knowing my luck lately, I figured the odds weren’t good.

My dad was waiting for me when I walked in the house. Did he even bother to ask,
Hey, how’d it go
 …?

Nope. The very first words out of his mouth were “I went down and talked with Jerry Johnson about your job.”

That did it. “It’s
not
my freakin’ job, and it’s never going to
be
my freakin’ job again, thank God!”

Wrong move.

Instead of yelling back, he spoke pretty quietly, but I could tell he was really pissed. Or worse, disappointed.

“So like I was saying,” he continued, “I talked to Jerry. I explained everything you said about Chris. No one wants to hear those kinds of things about their son, but to his credit he heard me out. Then he said, ‘Well, that explains a lot,’ and he told me a few things you left out of your little narrative. Like the way you left.”

Uh-oh. “He deserved it. He—”

He cut me off with a chopping motion. “No excuses! When you’ve done something out of line, the worst thing you can do is
try to justify it—that only digs you in deeper. The bottom line is, no matter how mad you get, the way you win is to act professional. If you’d gone to Jerry and explained the situation, I bet he could have straightened it out. And even if you’d quit, if you’d done it calmly and professionally, you’d probably have the job back now that Jerry understands the situation.” He softened his tone a little. “Why did you feel like you had to act the way you did? That’s not really like you.”

I thought about it.… Getting kicked. Toby. Getting bailed on by Kyle. Seeing the Sock Monkeys at Josh’s. Punching Kevin Flanders’s lights out. The choked audition with Bad Habit. Hearing about my replacement’s dad
just happening
to have a pro studio and
just happening
to have connections in the business. And of course, having to deal with a flaming asshole like Chris.

“Dad,” I finally said, “I’m full.” I held my hand up to the bottom of my raised chin. “Up to here.”

He didn’t say anything. He just nodded and waited.

“Okay,” I grumbled, “maybe I overreacted. I’ve just had so much bullshit flung at me that I couldn’t take any more—I had to get the hell out of there.”

He considered this, then surprised me by saying, “Okay, I guess I can see that. And don’t tell your mom I said this, but I might’ve done the same thing at your age.” He took a deep breath. “But you need to understand that kind of stuff doesn’t fly in the real world. If I treated my business associates like that, we’d be living in an old shack somewhere, eating beans out of a can.”

I nodded. “I get it.” It was a long shot, but I had to try.
“So now that you understand where I’m coming from, does this mean you’re dropping the requirement about getting a job?”

He smiled, and for a second I held out hope. But only for a second. “No
way
, dude!” Then he cracked up, like that was funny as hell.

After a few days I still hadn’t heard from Brad or Glenn, and with each day my hopes sank lower. I’d assumed they were going to listen to a few more guys, sure, but they must have heard them by now—there weren’t
that
many drummers in the area. And along with everything else, I really missed playing! Just getting together with other musicians and blasting out some tunes—there’s nothing like it. Sure, I practiced solo in my garage to keep my skills up, but it’s not the same.…

So by Thursday I figured they’d found someone else and just hadn’t bothered to call me. I mean, you call the winner, right? Why call someone to tell him he lost?

And of course, none of this solved my job situation.

The obvious place was our local music store (maybe I could meet some other musicians and join a group) but they weren’t hiring at the moment, so I applied at every Burger King, McDonald’s, and Taco Bell in the area. But it seemed like every other guy in town had done the same thing, only they were
smart enough to apply for their summer job
before
summer started. Who woulda thought?

So the going was slow, but I kept after it. Partly because I had to give a report to my dad every night about the efforts I’d made toward gainful employment. Other than that, I worked on music, rode my bike around town, and played b-ball.