Rock the Boat Read online

  “Aaah,” Webb said again, playing the entire riff. Harley joined in, chasing him.

  A five-dollar bill floated into Harley’s guitar case.

  Webb glanced over, not losing any of the chords. He hadn’t even noticed the approach of a middle-aged couple. She had shiny hair and an even shinier smile. She held hands with a balding man wearing brown pants and a light orange sweater; a camera hung from a strap around his neck.

  The man was doing a kind of turkey bob with his chin to the beat.

  Webb grinned at the couple. Harley hadn’t noticed them. His eyes were closed.

  “Whoo-hooo!” the man said. “This is what it’s all about.”

  Yup, tourists, Webb thought.

  Harley opened his eyes and grinned. “Yes, sir. This is what it’s all about. Kid’s not bad, is he?”

  “Can’t be,” the man said. “He’s a Stampeders fan.”

  Webb shrugged. But Harley was right—this was what it was all about. Music brought people together. Even if it was a street bum, a kid from Canada and some guy probably visiting Nashville for a plumbers’ convention.

  Webb hit a few new chords. Harley arched an eyebrow. Not a questioning eyebrow, but a hey, let’s see where that goes.

  It was the chorus of “Rock the Boat.” Webb throttled into it, and it didn’t take Harley long to fit in. The woman started tapping her toes, and Bill the Plumber kept up the turkey bob. Webb couldn’t help himself: he lit into the vocals.

  Yeah, we’re gonna rock the boat

  That’s the only way to know

  We’re gonna have to rock the boat

  Yeah, that’s the only way to go.

  Webb had his head tilted up, looking at the tops of the buildings, at the clouds drifting in the blue sky. It felt great. This was what it was all about. Chasing dreams.

  This is the time we’re living

  Let’s live it so loud

  This is the world we’re given

  Let’s bring the roof down

  And we won’t be looking back

  Only wishing that we had

  This is the time we’re living

  The time of our lives.

  “Whoo-hooo!” Bill the Plumber said again. His wife winked at Webb. Webb hung his head, suddenly shy.

  Bill the Plumber pulled up his camera. “Let me video this. Play the chorus again, okay? The two of you. So when you’re famous someday, I can prove I was here with you on the first day of our vacation.”

  Harley kept his head down and joined in as Webb replayed the chorus.

  “You guys are awesome,” Bill the Plumber said.

  His wife nudged him, and he caught the hint. Before they walked on, he pulled out his wallet and dropped another bill in the case.

  “Look at that,” Harley said, pointing at the bottom of the guitar case. “Dude must have really loved us.”

  The bill beside the original five showed a different number: 100.

  “Or he’s Canadian,” Webb said. The couple was almost to the corner. “He knew the Stampeders logo on my shirt.”

  “And that means?”

  “Fives up there are blue, hundreds are brown. Down here, all the same color. Easy to make a mistake.”

  “You willing to turn down an easy fifty bucks?”

  “None of it’s mine,” Webb said. “This is your gig.”

  Harley laughed. “The guy’s sweater looked like it was made in the last century. She’s got a home perm. They look like they can throw out hundreds?”

  “Your gig,” Webb said.

  “Would you take it if you were me?” Harley asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Me neither.” Harley put a couple of fingers up to his mouth and whistled hard. The husband and wife turned at the same time. Harley waved them back.

  By the time the couple reached them, Harley had the money ready in his fingers. Bill the Plumber had a puzzled look on his face.

  “Kid here thinks you’re from Canada,” Harley said. “Thinks you might have mixed up some currency—unless you meant to drop a hundred. Neither of us wants to steal from you.”

  Bill the Plumber’s mouth formed a wide O.

  “That’s what I thought,” Harley said. He handed over the bill. The man’s fingers were trembling as he accepted it. “You folks have a good weekend,” Harley said.

  “Wow,” Bill the Plumber said. “Yeah. We will. Thanks. Thanks a big bunch.”

  “Give them your card,” his wife said. “Case one of them is ever in Moose Jaw and needs a favor.”

  “Yes,” Bill the Plumber said. “Most definitely yes. You ever get to Moose Jaw and need new tires, we’re not hard to find.”

  He pulled out his wallet, carefully extracted a business card and threw the card onto the velvet.

  “Yes, sir,” Harley said. “Next time I’m west of Regina, I’ll make sure to stop by.”

  “See, honey?” Bill the Plumber said to his wife as they walked away. “People down here know where Moose Jaw is.”

  “Impressive,” Webb said. “Not many people know Moose Jaw. You made their day. First the money and then the Regina thing.”

  “Used to travel some,” Harley said. “Now, it’s just this.”

  “Music is music,” Webb answered. He wondered what downhill path had led Harley to busking to get by but decided it wasn’t his business to ask.

  “Yup.” Harley cocked his head, thinking something over. “Tell you what. I’ve got some buddies. We get together Thursday nights in an old warehouse at the river. We just jam. Sound good? Any time after seven thirty.”

  “Sounds good,” Webb said.

  Harley wrote the address down on the back of the business card.

  Webb tucked it into his wallet but not before flipping it over. Ward Auster, it said. Tires and Services.

  Yeah, Webb thought. That would have been his second guess. Ward the Tire Guy.

  Eight

  In the early afternoon, he walked through the doorway of Gerald Dean’s studio. Webb was officially down to six boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, and once the check to Gerald for $1,500 cleared, he’d have $99 in his bank account.

  He just didn’t think he had much choice. He needed those songs. They were going to be his calling card. With his remaining money, he’d buy a twenty-dollar package of blank CDs and transfer the songs. He’d go from label to label, dropping off a CD, and maybe someone would listen to it and want to talk to him. And he’d upload the songs to iTunes, selling the music as an indie artist while he hoped for a break in Nashville.

  Still, the thought that Gerald Dean was ripping him off was enough to set Webb’s teeth on edge. He realized that showing his anger would not help him in any way, so he reminded himself to be polite.

  Gerald was in the recording room, behind the glass. He saw Webb and held up his index figure, giving Webb the classic wait-just-one-minute signal.

  Webb saw through the glass why Gerald hadn’t jumped up from the mixing board. Sitting behind the mic, guitar across her lap, was the girl he’d seen the day before. Webb’s age. Dark hair. Snake tattoo on her inner wrist. She had her head tilted as if hanging on to every word from Gerald Dean.

  Webb remembered doing the same thing. Cutting a song meant doing the vocals forty or fifty times, and Gerald had interrupted constantly, requesting a slightly different pitch or tone.

  Webb hadn’t expected that. He’d thought he’d play a song all the way through and try to get all of it right, figuring he might have to do it five or six times.

  But a producer would take the best word in one line of vocals and mix it with the best couple of words in another line of vocals, cutting and pasting to get an entire vocal near perfect. That was before the fine-tuning. Produced songs were without blemish.

  Webb preferred a more organic approach. He liked it when a song came alive between him and the audience, creating an almost mystical connection. Webb didn’t want to be a studio musician. He wanted the process to be more like busking, where a song possessed y
ou and the audience until the last notes.

  Gerald’s promised one minute became ten. It began to irritate Webb. He’d learned to hide his emotions—letting someone else see them gave that person a degree of control. That had been one benefit of having an abusive stepfather, learning that lesson.

  Webb wandered out of Gerald’s sight. No sense standing right in front of the window like he had nothing better to do. Even though he had nothing better to do.

  A new poster on the opposite wall caught Webb’s attention. It was an audition poster. A band needed a lead guitar and vocalist. There was an email address for setting up a time slot. Webb wasn’t thinking of trying out. He was just killing time.

  He turned away from the poster as Gerald finally stepped out of the booth. The usual silk shirt and blue jeans. This time the silk shirt had a paisley pattern.

  The girl followed Gerald out of the studio.

  She gave Webb a decent smile. He returned the same.

  Gerald didn’t make introductions, as if Webb were invisible.

  So Webb kept smiling like it didn’t bother him, reached out his hand and said, “Hey, I’m Jim Webb. Nice to meet you.”

  “Charlene,” she said. “Charlene Adams.”

  Gerald coughed.

  Charlene gave a half-hiccup kind of laugh that Webb thought was cute.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Elle McWilliam.” She shrugged. “Gerald thinks it’s a better stage name.”

  “Cool,” Webb said. He liked the thought of her as Elle. “I’m mile oneTwelve. That’s my band. Even though I don’t actually have a band yet. But that’s the name going on my CD.”

  “Mile oneTwelve?”

  “Long story,” Webb said. “It’s a place on a trail up in the Arctic. Has significance for me.”

  “The Arctic.” She leaned closer. “Like polar-bear Arctic?”

  “Grizzly,” Webb said. “Definitely grizzly.”

  “Sounds like a cool story.” Her smile grew wider. “But that T-shirt. Really?”

  Webb grinned. “Football team. One for each day of the week.”

  “Like branding yourself, huh? People don’t forget you.”

  “Either that,” Webb said, “or a message that I’m not the kind of guy who gets up and spends the first hour of his day blow-drying his hair and buffing his fingernails.”

  She laughed.

  Gerald said, “Hate to break in, but time is money.”

  Webb paused. “So is paper.”

  He handed Gerald an envelope.

  Gerald didn’t open it.

  “You got a link for me?” Webb asked. “I’m looking forward to hearing the songs.”

  “When the check clears,” Gerald said.

  Webb said nothing. He was too angry.

  Probably to break the awkward silence, Elle said, “You were looking at the audition poster?”

  Webb felt the tightness in his jaw. He was staring at Gerald, thinking he’d like to push the guy up against the wall. When the check clears.

  Webb felt a touch on his arm.

  “I said, are you going to the audition?”

  “Wouldn’t be a good move, Webb,” Gerald said. “Hate to say it, but it’s true. They are going to need someone with some skills. Live performance is different than studio performance. I mean, in the studio I can make you sound good. But I wouldn’t want you embarrassing yourself at the audition, walking in wearing a horse T-shirt. The tiger yesterday wasn’t bad enough?”

  What was going on here? Webb wondered. Two months earlier, Gerald had gone on and on about how amazing Webb was on guitar and vocals. Oh, right, that was when Gerald was trying to milk a bunch of money from Webb.

  Webb moved his stare slowly away from Gerald and tried to relax and smile naturally at Elle.

  “Yeah,” Webb said. “The audition. I’ll be there.”

  Nine

  The road ran parallel to the murky brown of the Cumberland River, climbing away from downtown into a district of low faded-brick buildings with peeling painted signs for tire sales and oil changes and used furniture. The signs must have been shiny new at about the time soldiers were leaving town to fight in World War II, Webb guessed.

  He coughed away diesel fumes as the bus left him curbside, giving him a view of the downtown core and the football stadium where the Tennessee Titans battled each year for a shot at the playoffs. The stadium was placed squarely where, a hundred years earlier, dock men and grifters had wandered the warehouses, and the wharves held steamboats.

  As Webb took in the blue sky behind the Capitol building at the far side of downtown, he held his face to the sun, closed his eyes and told himself it was great to be in the moment on a beautiful January day.

  Thursday morning. Time for his audition. Feeling good in a vintage Edmonton Eskimos T-shirt. Green and yellow. Big EE for a logo.

  Then he thought about his immediate future. He squinted at his iPhone to double-check the street map on the screen. He was close to the right address, but this didn’t look like a place where guitars and dreams could take someone to a place on the charts. Not like Music Row.

  A sign on a building across the street promised coffee. Webb had forty minutes to kill before the audition, and the thought of a bone-white china mug filled with liquid black enough to soak up the miseries of a soul seemed attractive, even if it would take another couple of bucks. He told himself he would make it up by busking later.

  As he took his first steps across the street, Webb adjusted the strap of the guitar case on his back and shrugged to make it as comfortable as possible. But really there was no way to get a guitar case to fit the contours of your back. The only place a guitar belonged was out of the case, hanging from a strap around the shoulders and cradled across your belly.

  That’s where it would be when he proved that he deserved to win the audition.

  Jim Webb.

  Ten

  Inside the coffee shop, Webb found a table in the corner and set his guitar case on a chair.

  As Mumford played from invisible speakers, Webb wandered to the counter, where gleaming silver espresso machines contrasted with the brown-painted concrete blocks of the walls and the nicked and scarred hardwood floor. There was a place for a band to set up, with a chalkboard announcing live music on Friday nights. Speakers and wires and cables were plugged in and ready to go.

  This had once been a warehouse, obviously, now converted to the kind of trendy café that drew the kind of people he saw around him. Long hair. Tattoos. Earrings and pierced eyelids. Thrift-store clothing made chic. Funky hats. He knew he was catching a few glances, as if people were wondering if he was lost.

  His hair was almost preppy short, and he wore his CFL shirt, blue jeans and black Blundstone boots. It wasn’t a look that fit in a place where the baristas wrote the names of organic coffee beans in pastel chalk on a blackboard, but the glances Webb got didn’t bother him.

  The coffees listed on that trendy chalkboard weren’t cheap. The era of selling tires and used furniture in this neighborhood was long gone.

  All he wanted was a simple cup of coffee and a bagel, but now it looked as if he’d have to drop close to six bucks for it, more by the time he put some change in a glass tips jar at the till.

  Webb didn’t have to count the money in his pocket. He knew exactly what he had in bills and loose change. Six bucks that would buy plenty of macaroni and cheese at the grocery store near the marina. It would also go a long way toward a can of ground coffee for the filtered stuff he could make in the morning.

  Webb turned away from the counter and nearly stepped on the foot of a girl carrying an uncased guitar across her back.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  It was Charlene. From Gerald Dean’s studio. Or, rather, Elle—he told himself to think of her as Elle.

  She gave him a dark scowl he knew would sting for a while. What had he done wrong?

  He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he tried a smile. Her scowl deepened, so he took the hint and move
d past her to get his guitar case, passing a guy in a suit standing behind her.

  Normally, that was the thing about guitar. You could be the skinniest, dweebiest, nerdiest guy in the world, but get a guitar in your hands and rip a couple of chords, and you were transformed from someone girls scowled at into a chick magnet.

  At least, that’s what drew some guys into guitar.

  Not Webb. His Gibson J-45 was a legacy from his father. And so was Webb’s love of music. Every time Webb held his J-45, it took him back to those years of joy and innocence when his real dad was alive and patiently showing Webb where to put pressure on the frets, how to make his fingers move with silky magic and draw sound out of the guitar as if it were a mysterious creature with a soul of its own.

  “Great decoration, a guitar like that,” Webb heard as he lifted his case from the chair.

  He turned and straightened, thinking someone was talking to him.

  He was wrong.

  The comment was directed at Elle. It had come from the guy in the suit—maybe late twenties, probably owner of the silver BMW that hadn’t been parked in front of the coffee shop when Webb first walked in.

  Suit Guy sounded like he was kidding around, trying to engage Elle’s attention. If so, it worked. She turned around, and her eyes locked on his face.

  But it was the wrong kind of engagement. Suit Guy wouldn’t understand. A guitar wasn’t like a BMW. You didn’t have one to impress other people. You didn’t even own guitars; they owned you.

  Great decoration, a guitar like that. Webb had no doubt that Elle thought of her guitar as more than decoration. Just like he thought of his J-45 as more than polished metal and burnished wood.

  Even from the far side of the small café, Webb could see there wasn’t any playfulness in Elle’s eyes. But Suit Guy, standing so close to her that he could have reached across and pushed a lock of hair off her forehead, wasn’t reading her correctly.

  “Looks good on you,” he said.

  “Like a Beamer looks good on you?” she countered.

  “Something like that.” He’d taken it as a compliment. “You noticed, huh?”