Playing by Ear (Country Roads #1) - Chapter 30

Since it wasn’t quite dinner time, there hadn’t been many customers in the restaurant, but the staff for the evening shift had already clocked in when Aaron had pulled his little stunt.

The combination of the kitchen crew crowding around the back door and a police cruiser pulling around the back of the restaurant and then leaving shortly after with teenagers in the back was enough to bring all of them outside to see what was happening. Service workers are a gossipy bunch and Chef’s shooing everyone back inside and telling them to get back to work wasn’t enough to stop them from chattering about it.

Cameron had good timing, showing up a few minutes after I got back down from taking a shower. I’m not sure what gave it away, but he picked up on the heightened excitement level right away.

“What’s going on?” He asked, seeing me headed to the front porch, guitar case and duffle bag in hand.

“Aaron showed up and tried to cause trouble, ended up leaving in the back of a cop car.”

“He’s going to jail?”

“No. It was decided to not press charges,” I said, still a little bitter. “They’re just taking him home, and having a conversation with his dad. Harry, too.”

“Figures. That guy never gets any consequences.”

“Exactly what I said.”

“Let’s forget him. I’m totally pumped for tonight.”

“Don’t get out much, do you?”

“Not really. My parents may have written me off for worthless as far as farming goes, but that doesn’t mean I get a pass for chores. Most days I have to be up at four-thirty to start dealing with the animals. It makes staying out late listening to live music a little hard.”

“I can imagine.”

“Whatever. You grew up with this, staying up late as a kid, being backstage. You’ve lived the life.”

“It’s not as good of a life as you think it is. No friends, cause we don’t stay anywhere long enough, scraping buy living in an RV. I’ll give you that getting to meet and talk to all the different people was cool, but I think I might have traded it for the life living on a farm.”

“Say that after mucking out stalls every day, and chasing chickens.”

“Gettin’ everyone to play at the same tempo, is kinda like chasin’ chickens,” Willie said, walking up.

“Willie, this is my friend Cameron. Cameron, this is Willie.”

“Nice to meet you, sir,” Cameron said, seeming a little intimidated.

Cameron’s big dream in life was to end up on a stage, performing. The weird thing was that, except for in-school performances and school-sponsored events, he’d never performed for other people. That was probably why he always seemed to talk about the people who did with a sense of awe. I was just glad he didn’t treat me like that. I had enough imposter syndrome without someone I know treating me like I was something special.

“If you’re gonna go with us, it’s just Willie.”

“Ohh, sure. Sorry, Willie. Thanks for letting me tag along.”

“Happy to have you. Now, Charlie here vouched for your good behavior, so don’t go makin’ him look bad, ya hear?”

“Yes, si…I won’t, Willie.”

“Good. Keenan’s out in the car. We got a little drive ahead of us, so we need to get going.”

The plan was that they’d still drop me off at home after the show. They'd bring Cameron back to his car at the Blue Ridge, since Willie didn’t live that far from the restaurant. I’m sure it’d be a little awkward for Cameron, since he didn’t really know them, but he was outgoing enough, I figured he’d make it work. Besides, I was already pushing my luck far enough with Mom without getting home later than we’d agreed on.

Cameron didn’t wait till he was forced to talk to them after dropping me off to get started. We were only a few miles into the drive when he started throwing questions at Willie. I was a little worried at first that it might start getting on Willie’s nerves. He was really easygoing and laid back, but he also didn’t talk about himself or his past very much. Cameron almost seemed like he was trying to write the man’s biography. Thankfully, Willie took it in stride and didn’t seem that bothered, so I let it be. No reason to make Cameron feel bad if it wasn’t bothering anyone.

Besides, I was learning a lot about Willie thanks to Cameron’s questions. Unlike him, I was usually a little self-conscious about peppering people with too many questions, so the only things I knew about Willie were the things others had told me or offhand comments he’d made.

The biggest was his past playing on the Chitlin Circuit. He’d mentioned it before, but I’d never really known what that was, besides inferring it was some kind of music event that used to exist. It turned out it wasn’t a music event at all. Instead, it was a collection of bars, clubs, and halls along the east coast and down into the south that allowed African-American musicians to play during the era of segregation, when many locations didn’t allow them or would only pay the traveling musicians a fraction of what they paid white performers.

As old as Willie was, he only played the circuit during its last days, in the sixties and early seventies. According to Keenan, who apparently found this whole subject fascinating, its heyday was from the thirties up through the seventies. With the civil rights act eliminating the most blatant forms of discrimination and the increasing popularity of disco, rock, and R&B in the seventies, enough venues opened their doors to African-American performers that the necessity for something like the circuit disappeared. Performers still played at those venues, but it wasn’t its own thing, separate from the rest of the music venues in the country.

If history lessons had been this engaging in school, I might have paid more attention. Although considering they’d still be taught by Coach Bryant, maybe I wouldn’t have. Either way, the trip to Ashville went fast as we listened to Keenan’s explanations and Willie’s stories.

Pulling into the lot, he hadn’t been joking about this not being the same as the previous place I’d played at with him. That had been a really impressive building. Two stories with lots of decoration, an impressive lighted sign out front announcing its performers, and a big parking lot. This place was much smaller, only one story and it was fairly dark outside. We still went in the back, but the owner wasn’t waiting for us like they had at the other place. Willie seemed to be comfortable and knew where he was going, but had I been here on my own, I might have been worried.

Even inside, everything was darker. It wasn’t dirty so much as just dark. The walls were painted a dark color and the lights were fairly low. There didn’t seem to be a kitchen at all and the whole place smelled like stale beer.

“There isn’t a backstage area so you’ll have to sit out in the crowd,” Willie said, stopping to talk to Cameron. “There’s a small door next to the stage, so you’ll go out there and come back through it to meet up with us when we’re done. It’s normally okay, if a bit rowdy, but if things get out of hand, come on back with us. Okay?”

“Sure. Thanks again for bringing me.”

“No problem. Here’s the door. You go on, probably best if you find a spot near the stage, so we can keep an eye on you.”

“Okay.”

Cameron disappeared through the door. Willie’s warnings made me a little nervous, but he seemed oblivious to it, just excited to be here. We kept going down the hall, which suddenly dumped out on stage. The stage itself wasn’t that different than the Blue Ridge. There wasn’t a curtain or anything, the stage just dumped right out on the floor of the bar, and it certainly was a bar. There weren’t very many tables and the ones that were there were small, really only good for setting a pitcher of beer and a couple of glasses.

People milled about by the bar or around the outskirts of the dance floor. There were quite a few people dancing, some good others drunkenly and bad, while music from the jukebox played.

The other big difference was the lack of any house band. It was just Willie and me.

“I thought there’d be other people here?”

“No, the owner’s too cheap to pay for that. I usually play this by myself, guitar and my voice. It’ll be nice having someone else up here to play.”

Luckily, lessons with Willie had more or less devolved into us just playing together, so we were used to that. I’d seen Dad play a few gigs like this when I was younger, so it wasn’t completely alien, but I’d grown used to playing with a full band.

“You’ll do fine. It’s easier to play just us, since you don’t have to watch anyone else’s tempos, so just do what we do. No reason to get nervous,” Willie said, obviously catching the change in my mood.

There wasn’t any announcement or talking to the crowd like there had been at the other place. We set up our stuff, checked the mics, and plugged up to the amps that were already set up on the stage. Some people seemed to notice something was going on, but most of them were more interested in their beer than anything else.

That was where this place really diverged from playing at the Blue Ridge. There, music nights were the feature of the whole place. By the time we started, most of the people there had come specifically to listen to live music and enjoyed a drink or three while they did it. Here, drinking seemed the main focus and we were, if anything, an afterthought.

I looked down the wall towards the door Cameron had gone through and saw him at a small table off to the side, near the door. I kind of wish I’d asked Willie more questions before asking Cameron if he’d wanted to come with us. At the time, I thought it would be similar to the first place we played and it seemed like a nice gesture. This place was way sketchier. Cameron didn’t seem to mind, but this wasn’t exactly the peace offering I’d intended it to be.

Willie made his final checks of the setlist with me, and it was all familiar to me. He’d made sure to pick songs we’d played together, so I wasn’t worried about that. He did tell me I wasn’t going to do anything on my own or play my own music tonight. This wasn’t really that type of crowd and I hadn’t performed my music solo on stage before, and he didn’t feel like this was the right place to try something like that out.

We started without preamble, just going into the first song. The crowd barely seemed to notice, except for the people on the dance floor, since the owner had shut down the jukebox while we played. Most of them rolled with the change okay, continuing to dance while we played, although a few people walked off seemingly annoyed.

Just like every time I got up and played, the nervousness washed away once we got going. After a few songs, it actually felt comfortable, since it was just Willie and me. It felt more like we were back on the side porch of the Blue Ridge, just messing around with the music, instead of at a paying gig.

The crowd also started to get into it as we got going. More people went out on the dance floor and the tables nearest the stage started filling up, although they were still much more focused on drinking than the music. One of the things Willie’s lessons and my playing at the Blue Ridge had taught me was the importance of playing off the audience, and I’d grown used to it enough that its lack was starting to throw me off.

I decided to focus on the music instead, treating it almost like when just Willie and I played together. After a few more songs, I started playing off his more steady rhythm, like I did in practice, starting slowly to see if Willie seemed annoyed that I was going off-book. I’d split a half note into eighth or sixteenth, holding the same note but syncopating the rhythm. Willie responded by doing the same thing back at me a few bars later, which told me it was game on.

The next time there was a good spot, I split apart a whole note, but took the separate notes up a partial scale on the same key and back to the whole note, making sure the selected notes weren’t dissonant with what Willie was playing. We began to pass this back and forth, trading small changes to the music. When Willie had first started to introduce this kind of riffing, I’d been a little intimidated, worried about holding to the song that I was supposed to be playing. I knew it was a thing that was done, since there’d been major covers of already popular songs that did just this. I just found it challenging to not let the riffing get in the way of what I was actually trying to play.

Willie pointed out that, if done successfully, it was a great way to add some variety to a show. Because any performance needed to be practiced, touring musicians tended to hold to a setlist with very little change, maybe alternating out one or two songs at most from night to night. This could get very boring for the musicians by the twentieth night of a tour, and bored musicians made boring music. Audiences could hear when the band wasn’t into a song, which is why sometimes the beginning of a tour would get rave reviews and later legs would be found wanting.

I disappeared into the music, almost forgetting anyone was watching us play. I’m sure that wouldn’t be true if the audience was more engaged, but with this quiet of a crowd, it was easy. We did one song after another, going back and forth, just playing with the music. Willie was a friendly guy, but he was usually fairly subdued, even with playing. He enjoyed it just as much as I did, but he was more serious about it. The big smile on his face told me he was having as much fun as I was.

I was so engrossed; I didn’t notice anything was off right away. Willie noticed it first, falling off the beat slightly and looking towards the crowd. Some kind of argument was happening at the bar. I’d assume people were yelling, but between the amplifiers right next to us and the overall din of the bar, it was hard to tell.

“Just ignore it. This kind of thing happens in places like this. Normally the bartender gets it under control after a few.”

Sure enough, the bartender leaned across and started talking to the two men, finger-pointing at one of them. I thought for a second it was going to work, until one of the guys punched the bartender square in the face. That seemed to uncork whatever had been pent up to that point, and all-out mayhem started. The guy who punched the bartender was tackled by the guy he’d been arguing with, smashing into other people near the bar, who then retaliated.

I’d never seen a bar fight outside of TV, which hadn’t prepared me for how quickly things escalated, expanding out from the two people who’d started the fight. Some people moved away, managing to get out the front door or just flattening themselves against the wall to avoid getting involved, but a lot of the crowd threw themselves into the fight willingly. The one thing no one seemed to be was confused, suggesting this was the kind of thing that often happened here.

“Just start packing up. We’re about done anyways and we’d be way over by the time the cops get finished,” Willie said. “Don’t worry, they almost never come up on stage.”

The ‘almost never’ wasn’t as comforting as he probably meant it, but I started packing up all the same. Willie had mentioned this was a different kind of place than the last one we played out, but it hadn’t occurred to me that it was dangerous. It probably hadn’t occurred to Willie either, since he didn’t seem worried, but I knew I’d have problems when Mom found out about it.

I looked over towards where Cameron had been sitting, to signal him to come back through the door he’d gone through originally and leave with us, when I noticed him, some larger man was grabbing him by the arm. I hadn’t seen what happened leading up to that, but the man’s face was wet and he looked ready to kill. I didn’t stop and think. I just put my instrument by Willie’s feet and jumped off the stage.

Luckily for me, the guy hadn’t seen me coming. His fist was already traveling towards a terrified-looking Cameron when I got to them. Grabbing his wrist, I pulled down hard, bending it in one of the joint locks Chef had trained me on. He already had momentum and I wasn’t strong enough to actually stop his punch, but I did pull him to one side enough to miss Cameron. He was slow on the uptake, his brain probably completely soaked in cheap beer. As soon as he stopped applying force I pulled hard down and back, as I stepped behind him, getting the arm around his back. As I pushed it back up, causing pain in both the wrist I was controlling and the elbow, I smashed my knee into the small of his back.

The man let go of Cameron, who went tumbling over backward, as he tried to regain control, flailing and crashing to his knees. Part of me wanted to wait and see what happened, not wanting to push things further than they needed to go, but then I thought back to my dad. While I hadn’t actually seen him in a bar fight, Mom being smart enough to get me back out to the RV when he really started drinking, I’d seen the aftermath often enough and heard more than a few arguments between them on the subject.

The thing I learned most from those arguments was that drunk people don’t think about the repercussions when they start fighting. Most of the time, Dad couldn’t even explain why he’d gotten into a fight. If someone threw a punch, he had to throw one back.

I didn’t stop to give him that chance. Putting all my weight behind the punch, my fist impacted on the side of his head just as he was turning to get up. Either my workouts with Chef were really paying off or he was drunker than I thought, because as soon as I made contact, he dropped like a wet bag of cement to the floor. I didn’t wait around. Making sure there was no one else about to have a go at us, I stepped over the man and pulled Cameron up.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said as I spun him around and pushed him towards the door.

Willie and Keenan were already in the hallway with our instruments, and hustled us out to the car.

“Don’t you have to go get paid?” I asked as we loaded into Keenan’s truck.

“I went and got it when things looked like they were turning south,” Keenan said. “Willie has it in his performance agreement once a fight starts, he’s counted as doing his full time.”

“I’m not a young man anymore,” Willie said. “Back in the day, I’d play through all that nonsense, but sometimes things get out of hand, and I don’t think these old bones could handle that.”

“Did you know this might happen?”

“No. There hasn’t been this kind of problem here before. If there had been, I wouldn’t have brought you. It’s a bit rougher than some of the other places I play, but they normally keep a good lid on things.”

“Just bad luck, I guess,” Keenan said.

“Good luck you had Charlie with you. He dropped that guy like it was nothing.”

“Not like it was nothing. If he hadn’t already been so smashed when he grabbed you, that might have turned out differently. What happened? Why did he want to beat the crap out of you?”

“I don’t know, I mean, I do, but it wasn’t like I did anything. I was just sitting there, right, and things got loud over by the bar, and I looked over and this guy was stumbling backward, knocking my table over. He’d been holding a beer and it spilled all over him. Next thing I know, he’s standing up and saying I spilled his beer, and grabbed me. I was just sitting there, I swear.”

“Well, maybe next time I’ll ask what kind of places we’re going before I invite someone along. That is, if Mom lets me out of the house again.”

“You could not tell her,” Cameron suggested.

“She’ll find out, she always does. Telling her now will cause fewer problems than if she thought I was trying to hide it from her.”

“I’ll go up and talk to her. Are you okay waitin’ with Keenan for a few minutes while I talk to Charlie’s mom?” Willie said.

“Sure,” Cameron said.

I wasn’t one-hundred percent sold on the idea. True, Willie talking to her would keep me out of the line of fire, but it’d been a delicate balance so far, just convincing her to let me play gigs. While Willie would only have good things to say, there was a chance things would break bad and I’d be banned from even playing at the Blue Ridge anymore.

“Have you ever thought about voice lessons?” Cameron asked after a moment of silence.

“What?”

“I’m not saying you’re voice is bad or anything, but I can tell it’s untrained. Your upper range sounds like it has more room, but you’re not transitioning from chest voice to head voice very well. You also don’t maintain enough air control.”

“Uhh …”

“While I don’t know about all air control or whatever, he’s right that you’ve probably got more range,” Willie said. “For what I sing, it doesn’t matter much, but the sound you usually try for needs more range. I’m not really the one to teach that, so I haven’t said much.”

“I could help you,” Cameron offered. “I’m not as good as you, but I’ve had enough vocal training over the last few years I could give you pointers. You’d probably need a professional at some point, but I could get you started.”

“Are you sure?”

“Are you kidding? Of course I’m sure. One, I love being the guy telling everyone what they’re doing right or wrong, and two, I can say I helped Charlie Nelson learn to sing once you become a big famous star.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“I’m messing with you, but I’m serious. I know you’re busy at lunch, but maybe once a week we can go to the choir room. There isn’t a class there at lunchtime.”

“Rhonda will be annoyed, but I think she’ll be okay. She’s the one who really wants me to become famous. I just want to play music.”

“Great. Tuesday?”

“I’ll let you know,” I said.

I wasn’t convinced voice lessons would help me out that much, but at this point who was I to say no to people helping me.

We pulled up at the house and Willie and I got out. Mom’s car was parked on the side, so I knew she was already home, and I could see the front room light was on, so I knew she was up, which wasn’t surprising. The few times I was out after she got home from work, she always sat up waiting for me. I paused in front of the steps, building up my courage.

“It’ll be okay Charlie,” Willie said next to me.

I just nodded and started up the steps, when the door opened up. Mom had started to say something and stopped, surprised to see Willie walking up the steps behind me.

“Hey Mom … We, ahh…”

“Howdy, ma’am. I know it’s fairly late, but I was hopin’ to sit down with you for a moment and have a conversation about Charlie here.”

Mom had on her serious face, the one she uses when she’s making a final judgment on a situation.

“I think that’s a good idea, Mr. Johnson,” she said, standing aside and holding open the door.

“Just Willie, ma’am,” he said as he walked past her.

I sat down at the kitchen table, partly out of habit and partly for a quick getaway for Willie, not that I actually thought anything that bad would happen. Mom paused halfway to the table while Willie took a seat next to me, apparently torn between her mother bear instincts and her wanting to be a good host.

“Willie, do you want some coffee?”

“Thank you, but no. It’s late and I have enough trouble gettin’ to sleep these days as it is. I’m not a young man anymore, stayin’ up late drinkin’ a cup after a gig.”

Mom gave a tight smile and joined us at the table. Willie had certainly turned up the charm, but Mom’s armor was up.

“I’m glad you came in, I’ve been telling Charlie that I wanted to speak to you for a little while now.”

“Yes, he’s told me as much, but I’ve been a might busy gettin’ ready for this tour,” Willie said, despite the fact that I’d chosen the cowards path and hadn’t mentioned it to him at all yet. “First, I think I should tell you there was a bit of a dust-up at the show tonight, which accounts for our bein’ back so early.”

“What happened,” she said, her serious facade slipping as concern took over.

“Nothing …” I started to say, until she held up a finger in my direction, not breaking eye contact with Willie.

“As sometimes happens in places where folks are drinkin’, a fight broke out. Charlie was in no danger, I’ll tell you that now. My nephew was there and he would have made sure Charlie was fine, but it wasn’t necessary. We left as soon as it started, although there was an incident with Charlie’s friend, but he handled it well. No one even laid a hand on your son.”

“What do you mean, an incident?”

“You know how I brought Cameron with me, right?” I said, filling this part in. “There wasn’t much of a back area, the hallway from outside kind of just dumped out onto the stage, which meant Cameron had to sit out on the floor. When everything started a drunk guy got knocked onto him and ended up spilling his beer on himself, and blamed Cameron for it.”

“So you left it to the bouncers or one of the other adults to help him out, right?” Mom asked pointedly.

“There weren’t any other adults, other than Willie. Did you want me to ask Willie to go and help him? No offense,” I said turning to Willie.

“I’m glad you didn’t. Ma’am, Charlie did just fine and we were out of there lickety-split. He wasn’t in any danger.”

“He had to pull a drunk adult off his friend, and you’re telling me he wasn’t in any danger. Of course he was. I don’t care if he did fine this time. The guy could have had a knife. I can tell you from personal experience when drunk men are going at it, anything could happen.”

“I wasn’t in any danger. I did just what Chef taught me to do. He never even got a hand on me.”

“This is why I wasn’t wild about you learning to fight. The only thing more dangerous than someone who doesn’t know how to fight is someone who knows just a little bit.”

“What would you have had me do, let him beat the crap out of Cameron?”

“I’m not saying that. What I am saying is I’m not okay with you being in that position. This is the last time you’re ever going somewhere like that again.”

“You’re not going to be able to ban me from all danger Mom. You understand I’ve had someone try and kick my ass multiple times at school, and the reason I know Cameron at all was he was in the process of getting beat up by someone at school, a place you gladly have me go every day? Every time I walk out that door, anything could happen. Willie said this place had never had a brawl before, otherwise, he wouldn’t have taken me. I came upon the guy from behind and never gave him a chance to turn around, I just put him down hard, grabbed Cameron, and hauled ass. I was never in danger.”

“I play at this place every year, and this has never happened. Normally they have guys watching for drunks and throwing them out,” Willie said. “I wouldn’t have taken Charlie there if I knew there was a chance this could happen.”

Mom didn’t look mollified, but she didn’t immediately tell me I was done playing either, which was a good sign.

“I’m still not crazy about this.”

“Ma’am, I’ve been playing all my life and I’ve heard some damn fine musicians in my life, so I want you to understand what I mean when I say Charlie has the chance of bein’ one of the finest around. I understand you’ve been around the business long enough to understand that even with talent it’s a long shot, but Charlie has a better chance than any I’ve played with before. This boy is a rare talent. He’s young, sure, and he needs polishin’; but with the right people behind him, there ain’t nothin’ that can stop him.”

I stared at him open-mouthed. I knew Willie thought highly of me, but I hadn’t heard him say anything like that before.

“Don’t let it go to your head,” Mom said, seeing my expression. “When he says it’s still a long shot, he isn’t joking. If I learned one thing all those years with your father, it's that making it in the music business is as much luck as it is anything else.”

“So is …” I started to say, but stopped when Willie put his hand on my shoulder.

“Son, when a woman has that look in her eye, she’s already made up her mind. Everything else is to beat sense into you before she says 'yes.'”

“You’re too smart for your own good, Mr. Johnson.”

“My Ellie May would have agreed with you there Ms. Nelson, God rest her soul. Of course, she’d then tell me I didn’t know nothin’ right after that.”

Mom turned her glare on Willie, and I was sure it was all over for him. I’d been the target of that look many times in my life, and I’d always come out worse, which is why I was so surprised when she broke into a grin.

“He’s right, I have made up my mind. I want to make it clear that next time he plays with you at one of these establishments, I’m holding you responsible. If there isn’t the appropriate security, then you send his butt back out to the car to wait till you’re done playing.”

“I can manage that,” Willie said.

“I can’t, I can take …”

“Quiet, Charlie, this is between Mr. Johnson and me.”

“What, I don’t get a say in my life?”

“Nope. The talent plays, they leave management to their betters.”

“She’s got you there. Every player I ever met that was worth his salt was a mess when it came to the business, and the ones that were good at business couldn’t play a lick. Different parts of the brain I guess.”

“For now, I want you to contact me with any opportunities for Charlie. I’ll be the one to decide what gigs he takes from now on. I handled it for his father, I think I can manage it for now. If this is as important to him as he seems to think it is, then I guess we’ve got to make sure he gets all the chances he can, right?

“Sounds fine to me. Honestly, right now he’ll still mostly be playin’ at the Ridge. He needs seasoning and probably to learn about makin’ his own stuff before he’s gonna be able to branch out, but he’s young. He has time.”

“I want to make it clear, another incident like tonight, and I’m going to pull the plug,” she said, sticking out her hand.

“Understood,” Willie said.

The two shook, apparently sealing my fate. I sat back in my chair, trying to project dissatisfaction that I wasn’t allowed to have a say in how my future was to be handled. In actuality, I was fairly happy. If Mom was part of the team, she was less likely to keep me from playing and they were right, I didn’t really know what I was doing. So far I’d stumbled from this opportunity into that, so it would be nice to have people guiding me who actually knew what they were doing. Besides, I couldn’t give in to their plans too easily. I had my cred as a teenager to think about.