Excellent short story People We Once Knew : Music Lessons by estory

This is a story about four kids who started a rock band. They were just your average, run of the mill kids, with average, run of the mill parents. Their names were Eddy Beckenbried, lead singer; Pete Langella, drums; Dave Tucker, lead guitar; and Tom McDermond, bass. Eddy's father was the pastor of the local Presbyterian church, St. Luke's. Pete's dad was a plumber, Dave's worked as a certified public accountant, and Tom's owned a gas station. So in many ways, you could say they came from all walks of life. If you walked passed one of their houses, they would seem like any of the other capes or colonials in town, with a boxwood hedge and a two car garage. Basically, these parents were saving their hard earned money all their lives to send their prodigals to college, dreaming that they would become lawyers, doctors, stockbrokers or engineers. Rock music was something that they heard over the airwaves, with some trepidation. It seemed like a phenomenon that would come and go like long hair or miniskirts. It did not seem like a viable career choice, despite the fame of the Beatles at that time. The rock band was Eddy's idea. In many ways, it was his dream; maybe of escape, maybe of a cry for attention. When he was a boy, he sat in the first pew of his father's church, with the rest of his family, and watched his father preach. Maybe he didn't listen to the sermon as much as he observed the waving of his arms in that eye catching robe, his voice rising and riveting the attention of everyone else gathered there. Much to his father's chagrin, Eddy didn't think of himself as a Luther or a Wesley as much as a Mick Jagger or a Robert Plant. After all, not too many of the girls at school, particularly the cool ones, seemed as interested in the philosophies of Protestantism as they were in The Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin. But when Eddy became a teenager, he would lock himself in his room, stand in front of the mirror, and wave his arms and preach to himself. Sometimes he would sing, looking strangely and eerily like his dad, even if he didn't think of himself in that vein. The other guys were schoolyard chums, guys Eddy read comic books with, or played handball with, during recess. Their neighbors might have remembered them for playing kick he can so loudly on all those summer nights. They all wore the same tie dyed t- shirts and listened to the same records. They always seemed to be the ones watching girls from a distance, as they flirted with the members of the football team and the marching band. Perhaps, when Eddy broached the idea to them, the rock band sounded like something that might break the ice at parties or in the lunch room. Dave was the only one who had any real formal education in music. Dave's father had once paid for piano lessons, so he knew how to read music, at least. The tutor who gave him the lessons was a rather condescending, stiff gentleman who for some reason always wore a jacket when he went to the homes of his students. He was constantly having to call Dave's attention away from what was going on outside the window or on the television set his sister was watching. Dave's father, when he was around, used to sit on the living room couch and listen to the lessons with his arms folded. The piano lessons that he himself had been forced to take as a boy galvanized the sense of discipline in him that led to the accounting career, so he felt it was a duty that he needed to perform for his child. In the end, after a six week trial, he must have seen how hopeless it was and gave Dave his release. So you can imagine his father's surprise when five years later Dave informed him that he was becoming a musician and joining a rock band. "What are you going to play? The piano?" he asked his son. "This isn't Beethoven or Tchaikovsky, dad," Dave said, as if those unfortunates had been dead and buried for long enough. "So what are you going to play, then?" "The guitar. The electric guitar." "What do you know about playing the electric guitar?" Dave shrugged. "It's really not much different than the piano." "Well, don't you guys electrocute yourselves. So Eddy's in the band too? What's he playing?" "He's not playing. He's singing." Dave's father had to laugh at this one, but Dave was not amused. "Why does everything we do seem like a joke, dad? Don't you think we're capable of doing anything on our own?" "It's just that I've never heard Eddy sing. But I guess if it doesn't interfere with your college entrance exams, it's alright. You might learn something." Pete's father was watching a ball game when his son told him about the band, and he seemed more interested in the balls and strikes than his kid telling him something about buying a drum set. "Just don't play it in the house," he said, cracking open another beer. "I want to hear the play by play of the game." Tom's dad, Mr. McDermond, spent so little time at home and so much time at the garage, and missed so many little league games and Christmas Eves that he was always enthusiastic and supportive of his children's endeavors. When Tom asked him if they could use part of the garage to practice in, he backed the car out himself. "Sure you guys can use the garage," he told Tom, "are you sure it's big enough for a band?" "It'll be fine, dad," Tom told him. They both stood together for a moment, looking around the place, Tom's father's hands fiddling with loose change in his pockets. "So what's the name of the band?" he asked Tom. "The Spotlights." "The Spotlights, clever," Mr. McDermond repeated. "You think of that?" "No, dad; it was Eddy's idea." "Eddy. So what's Eddy doing in the band?" "He's the lead singer." "Why does he have to be the lead? What are you doing?" "I'm playing bass." "Well, I guess you have to start someplace. You can start with the bass, and work your way up, I guess." "You don't work your way up in a band, dad," Tom told him, somewhat incredulously. Tom's father shrugged, and began to walk away. "Well, good luck. If you need anything else, let me know," he said, over his shoulder. Eddy's father, the pastor, was not at all thrilled when his son informed him that he was starting a rock band, and was, in fact, going to be the lead singer. "Those people are a bunch of pot smoking, pill popping drug addicts," he lectured Eddy. "They live a loose life style. They sleep around, they burn American flags. I won't have any of that in my house. I'm a pastor of a church, for crying out loud." "We're not going to practice here," Eddy told him. "Tom's dad said we could use his garage." "I don't care where you practice," the father retorted, raising his voice and waving his arms, "It's not about where you practice. It's about what you're doing with your life." "That's what I'm doing, dad, I'm living my life, not yours," Eddy was raising his voice and waving his arms now. "I've been saving all my life to send you to college, and that's where you're going. Understood? This rock band stuff isn't going to interfere with that. I don't care if you don't go up to the seminary like I did. But you can be a teacher or a counselor, at least." "I don't want to be a teacher," Eddy insisted, storming off down the hall for the front door. "And get a hair cut!" his father yelled after him. "Mrs. Clarkson asked your mother if you were a hippie, the other day." "Then I'll stay out of church!" Eddy yelled defiantly back. He slammed the door behind him, for effect. Over the course of the next few weeks, the band began gathering in Tom's garage, pinning up Pink Floyd and Who posters, gradually assembling their amps and microphones and coaxial cables, and their rented instruments. Dave's father bought him a guitar for his birthday, but Pete and Tom had to take jobs stocking shelves for Save Mart at night to save up for the payments on their base and drum sets. Eddy was impatient with the progress. In the meanwhile, he began to show up in the clothes he referred to as his 'costume.' This included a pair of leather breeches, a pair of suede cowboy boots, complete with spurs, a black waistcoat with tails, a frocked shirt, a bow tie and a top hat. He put up a full length mirror that he borrowed from his sister in one corner of the garage, and practiced a repertoire of karate kicks, ballet spins, leaps and microphone swings in it. He scowled and grimaced and growled to himself, he combed and teased his hair. He may not have sounded the part, but at least he looked it. The guys sat around in the garage, smoking joints, and talking about music and girls. They had moved an old sofa, a coffee table and a couple of folding chairs into the place, stuff they found out at the curb next to their neighbor's houses. They did make some progress on their logo. Every band had to have a logo, Eddy told them. The Spotlights would have a silhouette of a man with long hair playing a guitar in the cone of a spotlight shining down from above his head. It was something Dave had designed with a black magic marker on a sketch pad in art class. They traced it out on white t-shirts they bought for themselves, and wore them to school. "Who are the Spotlights?" kids asked them in the halls. "We're The Spotlights," Eddy would answer, pointing to the logo with his thumb. There were a couple of girls who began to hang around with them at lunch and after school, so that was a step in the right direction. Their names were Evelyn and Christine, and they had been known to quaff a few brews at parties, and smoke cigarettes at recess, little things that were just enough to keep you guessing about their character. Eddy invited them to the garage to watch them practice, and the boys were more than happy to accommodate them. They bought a lava lamp from a home décor store and put it on the coffee table. By now, they had begun to figure out how to hook up the equipment and play the instruments. The girls came over, one rainy Sunday afternoon, and sat on the couch watching the boys plug in the microphones and tune up their guitar and bass. "How long does it take for you to set up?" the girl named Christine asked Eddy after a half hour or so, running her fingers through her long, blond hair. "We want to get the sound right," Eddy said confidently, "For you." The girl named Evelyn, who was wearing a blouse without a bra underneath, leaned forward impatiently. "Are you going to play us a song?" she asked. She looked sideways at Dave, who smiled back sheepishly, as he plucked a few strings and worked his pedals. "Sure we can play you a song, right guys?" Eddy turned to his bandmates, who straightened up into their poses. The girls listened as they bashed out a number that Eddy called "Going For Broke." It was a loud, cacophonous affair, and near the end, Eddy tried swinging the microphone out in the space over the girls' heads and almost whacked Evelyn in the head with it. He waved his arms and stomped around, and they watched him do that. Pete ended it with a long drum roll and a crash of symbols that made them jump. "So what did you think?" Eddy asked the girls, sitting there staring at them. "It sounded like Stairway To Heaven," Christine told him, "Kind of." The girls may have been too kind, but Eddy was encouraged. After all, the band had a couple of groupies and everything. They might be going places. It was something he could tell his father about. "So, have you thought about what schools you're going to apply to?" he asked Eddy at dinner, one day. "I'm putting a couple of shows together," he answered his dad, looking up quickly from his plate. "I'm taking the band on the road." "Out on the road?" The old man leaned over when he said this. Eddy's mother sighed. His sister looked as if she wished she were somewhere else. "Are you nuts? You're sitting around in a garage, Eddy. Playing for a couple of hippies. What the heck do they know about music?" "It's our music," Eddy proclaimed. "They know about our music. Rock and Roll. It's here to stay. And we're not nuts either." He got up without finishing his plate and stormed out the front door. "You come back and finish the dinner your mother made for you!" Eddy's father yelled after him. His mother got up and scraped his plate off into the garbage. "Where did I go wrong?" the old man asked his wife. "You yell at him too much, George," she told him. Eddy told the guys he had taken a demo tape over to Friars, a bar that staged open mike nights on weekends in town. They were excited. Of course, they told the girls, and Christine and Evelyn were excited too. All kinds of people hung out at that bar, they told themselves. Sometimes people from the radio station, WLOR, were there. The girls would be seen with them. They talked about what they would wear. "Let your friends know," Eddy told them. "This is going to be cool." "OK," said Christine. "We can make some posters." "We'll hang them around school," Dave said. Maybe we can even hang them up on the telephone poles around town." "Sure," Eddy said. He insisted that they practice every night after school. Tom's father even watched them play one night. He stood there for a couple of songs with his hands in his pockets, fiddling with loose change. "Keep up the good work," he told them. "If you need anything, let me know." The night of the big show came before they knew it. The problems started almost right away. Pete's father let them use his van to drive their equipment over to the bar, but he was late showing up at the garage with it because of a stopped drain across town, and the loading of the stuff got rushed and confused. In all the running around, no-one kept track of whether they had all their microphones and cables, their guitar pedals and their high hat stands. Then Christine called and said her friends weren't coming. Some of them said they were sick, and some of them said they were going to the mall. "Who would go to a mall when you have a chance to see the start of something big?" Eddy said incredulously. Pete and Tom were getting nervous. You could tell by the way they kept asking Eddy how crowded he thought the bar would be, and if the show would be broadcast over the radio. "What, are you guys chickening out on me?" Eddy asked them. "Come on. Pull yourselves together." When they got to the bar, they found out they were the second of five bands that would be playing that night, and their set would be only two songs long. The stage was the size of a cafeteria table. The dressing room was in the Men's room. "This sucks," Pete said, "There's no room. Somebody's going to fall off the stage." "This is the way everyone gets started," Eddy said firmly. "Quit whining. We don't have time to argue about this. Anybody see the girls?" "There they are," Tom said. And sure enough, there they were, talking to some metal heads that were with another band, on the other side of the bar. The metal heads had bought them each a beer. Eddy grimaced. "To hell with them." The manager of the bar came up to them and told them that they would be up next. He told them to get their equipment ready. That's when they discovered that they had forgotten the coaxial cables for the amps, and that they were missing the high hat stands. "I can't believe this," Eddy fumed. "Didn't you guys check the list of stuff before we left?" "That was supposed to be your job." "Bullshit. Now we're going to have to borrow some stuff from someone else." Eddy went up to the metal heads, who were making Christine and Evelyn laugh at the bar. "Forgot your stuff, huh?" The tall guy with the tattoos said. His friend with the beard laughed. The girls giggled. "Sure. We'll let you use ours. We always help out the newbies. We'll keep an eye on you from the front row. Don't break anything. Is this your first time on stage?" Eddy nodded. "Kind of." The guy with the beard laughed again. "Don't crap your pants now," he said, slipping an arm around Evelyn's waist. "There's someone here from WLOR." "So what are you guys going to play?" Christine asked, blowing out the smoke from her cigarette. "Going For Broke and Paths Of Glory," Eddy said. The girls giggled again. The metal heads shook their heads. "Sounds real catchy," the guy with the tattoos said. "Good luck." Then the manager of the bar came over again and told them to hurry up. If they couldn't get it together, he would put the next band on stage. They fiddled with their instruments while the crowd began to snicker and sneer. They straightened up on the darkened stage. "Geez," Pete said, "Everybody's watching us." "What did you think they were going to do?" Eddy snapped at them. "Lighten up," Tom replied. The manager announced them, and the spotlight went on, illuminating the band on stage. And there was no sound. "What did you guys do?" Eddy yelled, as the crowd began to boo and laugh. "I don't know," Dave said. "There's something wrong with the sound." The manger came over again. "Guys, we have to get going here. We have three other bands on the lineup. If you can't get it together, get off the stage." "Hey," the tattoed guy yelled from the crowd, "Give us our cables back." The Spotlights left, Eddy yelling at Tom and Dave and Pete, Tom and Dave yelling back, and Pete looking over his shoulder at the girls. They broke up not long after that. Tom ended up working at his father's garage, learning how to fix cars and grass cutters. Years later, after his parents retired and moved to Florida, he took over the business and you can still see him there sometimes, late at night, fiddling under the hood of someone's skylark, in the lights. Pete stayed on at the Save Mart, where he eventually became the night manager. Dave enrolled in his father's alma mater, and got a job in his father's firm. Eventually, he went out on his own, moved to California, and married a secretary. Eddy couldn't accept the demise of his dream and the failure his father predicted. He began to drink, and smoke pot. He was arrested for possession of a controlled substance, and got out of most of his sentence when the judge remanded him to a recovery program. While in the program, he met a girl named Jennifer who was a born again Christian. She talked him into going to the seminary after all, and he became a pastor with a ministry to drug addicted kids. So his father forgave him, of course. And in the end, the apple doesn't fall that far from the tree, after all. Author Notes This is a coming of age kind of story, told in a lighthearted tone, sort of in the style of John Cheever, one of my many idols. It's another one of these suburban parables gathered from experiences growing up in New York, but it probably could happen just about anywhere in the late sixties and seventies, in that unsettled time that shaped us. All sorts of winds blow you in all sorts of directions, confusing your parents, but somehow, in the end, you never seem to end up that far from the tree that bore you. estory

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