Dissonance - Chapter 19

Thankfully, dad didn’t come back before mom got home from work that night. I didn’t know what happened to him, and honestly I didn’t really care that much.

“What were you thinking?” I said as soon as she walked through the door.

Not the best way to start this conversation, I know, but I’d spent hours fuming over this and had worked myself up quite a bit while I waited.

“That’s some way too great your mother,” she said, setting down her bags and sitting in the chair next to me. “Why don’t you try again.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean for it to sound like that. I just found out dad took a bunch of money out for the band's account and when I confronted him, he was a total dick about it.”

“Don’t use that language, Charlie. I thought he was just getting a guitar so he could work on music with you. How much do you mean by ‘a bunch of money.’”

“Two thousand dollars. he bought himself a guitar, alright. One of the best ones money can buy.”

“I see. While that’s more than I was expecting, I think it’s still within your part of what the band makes, and his input will really be helping your entire band, so I think, as an investment …”

“I didn’t want his help, Mom. I still don’t. Shouldn’t someone have talked to me about this before you just put him as a signer on the band's account?”

“I can see you’re upset about it, and maybe we should have mentioned it to you first, but we’re still your parents Charlie. Sometimes, we’re going to make decisions for your own good without you.”

“How is this for my own good? You were the one who didn’t want me to be like dad, dropping out of school and living gig to gig. Now you’re saying it’s in my best interest to have him involved. Did you know he agreed with Brent and tried to talk me into dropping out of school and touring over the fall?”

“I know about that and I don’t think you’re being fair in how you described it. From what I heard, yes, he talked to your manager, heard about the plans and told you he thought it was a good idea. He also agreed to leave it alone when you said you wanted to stay in school like we discussed and let it drop, and hasn’t said anything else about it to you. Right?”

“Yes, but that’s exactly the opposite of what you’ve been telling me, and then you let him get involved. I just don’t understand it.”

“You’re going to have to be a little more flexible, Charlie. We’re in an adjustment period and things are going to be a little confusing for a while. No one was expecting your dad to be here, most of all him, and when he gets here, he finds you’re living his dreams. He’s incredibly proud of you, but it’s going to take him some time to adjust to it. The best thing we can do is be patient with him and try to figure out how this is all going to work. He wants to help you avoid the mistakes he made and be successful. Is that so wrong?”

“I don’t believe that. I think he’s trying to live the life he wanted through me, or maybe even trying to find a way to use me to get his music career going again.”

“That’s not fair, Charlie. Nothing he’s done says he’s trying to use you or live his life from you. You’ve had other people, including your high school choir teacher, helping you right music. Your father's career may have never taken off, but he made a living for a long time off music. Instead of instantly jumping to the worst possible interpretation of a situation, you should maybe consider taking his help.”

“This isn’t about him wanting to help me with music. This is about two grand being pulled out of the band account. I can’t believe you don’t see how bad that is.”

“I will admit, that is more money than he’d said he needed, and I will talk to him about it, but I don’t think it’s worth getting into some kind of fit over. Until he went away, your father provided for us our entire lives. Is it too much to ask that we provide for him while he gets back on his feet?”

“It is, but he didn’t take the money from us. Or even from me. He took it from the band account. You helped set all this up, so you know that isn’t just my money. I just … I just can’t figure out why you're defending this.”

“I just think you’re overreacting. Look, I had a long day and I need to take a shower. I’ll talk to your father and make sure it doesn’t happen again. Okay?”

“Fine,” I said.

It was clear she wasn’t going to budge and it wasn’t worth getting in a huge fight over. While I was pissed dad took out the money, that wasn’t what was really bothering me. Ever since dad got arrested, mom had been trying to change things for us. She’d been working hard to give us stability, to the point where she almost put a stop to my playing music for money at all.

Now dad was back, and it was like she’d done a complete one-eighty. I’d hoped this was some big mistake or maybe dad had tricked her, but it wasn’t. I’d lost some trust in her, and that made me really sad.

***

After our confrontation, or maybe after Mom talked to him, Dad avoided me just as much as I avoided him, which worked for me. Our brief confrontation made it clear he hadn’t changed at all. He still had the short temper I remembered, and couldn’t care less if his actions affected anyone else.

When it came to the money, I chickened out. Instead of telling the band what my dad had done, I replaced the money with money I’d been saving up in my bank account. I was still giving half of everything I made to mom, but she’d insisted I keep the rest. Although I spent some while we were traveling and had to pay for my car insurance and gas, I’d built up several thousand in my bank after almost a year of playing music for money. That was now mostly gone, thanks to my father, but I couldn’t let the rest of the band pay for my family's decisions.

We’d played on the weekend at the Blue Ridge to a packed crowd. So much so that Chef had to turn some people away or have them wait until the crowd emptied out enough. Saturday, he even moved two extra speakers outside and played music for the people who gathered up, keeping the party going in the parking lot.

It was a great homecoming and it felt wonderful playing in the Blue Ridge again, with the familiar faces out in the crowd. I think we’d also gotten better since the last time anyone here had seen us. Although we’d played here more times than we’d ever played out on the roads, I think we’d gained confidence from those different venues that people could hear in our music. Or at least, a lot of the people who stopped and talked to me after our sets said they thought we sounded better.

While I made sure to get out of the trailer and over to the Phillip’s house for breakfast to avoid my dad, I was in a good mood. Playing at the Blue Ridge had really made things feel normal again, even with everything at home.

I let myself in and started pouring some cereal. The first few days I’d come over for breakfast, I’d knocked on the door and waited to be invited in. By day three, Hanna’s mom decided she was tired of letting me in, and gave me a key so I could just come in, with instructions to not bug her unless I needed something. While I liked having breakfast, and most lunches and dinners, with Kat and Hanna’s mom, I think the real reason I kept going every day was because I was so welcomed. With my own family feeling like it was falling apart, it was a bit of that family feeling mom and I had had before Dad showed up.

“Have you seen the paper today?” Mrs. Phillips asked, coming into the kitchen.

Kat, who liked to sleep in, wasn't up yet and usually joined me right about the time I finished eating.

“No.”

I didn’t actually know how papers worked here. Wellsville didn’t have its own and the gas station mostly only had a few of the big papers from New York or Washington and then the Ashville Herald. I was pretty sure they didn’t do house delivering out here, but we’d been on a pretty fixed income since we moved here, so maybe it was just we didn’t pay for it.

“Page sixteen,” she said, setting the paper down in front of me.

Page sixteen was the start of the Arts & Entertainment section, which had a big splash page that said “Summer Music Spectacular”, and then a bunch of short articles on various shows that had happened over the last three months. We weren’t actually on page sixteen, since it went more or less chronologically. We were the second to last show listed, with our review on page seventeen, on the opposite side of the fold.

The New Kid on The Block

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a band break out from our small corner of the state, but Charlie Nelson looks to be on the verge of just that, having just finished a tour across four states, which ended with a triumphant show here in Asheville.

Hailing from the tiny town of Wellsville, an hour north of us, Charlie spent his childhood traveling the country with his father, a session and gig musician, hearing classic rock in every small bar, club and dive along the east coast. That history shows in his performance, which has the feel of something you might have seen if you were hitting up clubs in the early seventies. That isn’t to say it’s dated. He plays an interesting fusion of southern rock and modern pop that I haven’t heard before and he’s as good on a guitar as any of the greats from those days.

What we see in his playing is truly impressive, and yet feel like we’re just getting a taste of what this young man is capable of. One day, I hope someone writes a song for him that really challenges his skills with the six-string, so we can see what he can really do. I think on that day, audiences might put him up along with some of the greats.

Music aside, the show itself was refreshing. A lot of the artists I see these days believe that spectacle is the key to a good concert. And for some of them it is, but it takes away from the music. Sure, when the songs are auto-tuned and pulled out of the factory where they produce many of the groups we hear on the radio today, that is probably a good thing, but I miss the shows we used to get. A band, up on stage, pouring it all out for the audience.

Charlie and the Wild Cats do just that. There aren’t glitter cannons, rows of dancers, or people sliding in on wires from the wings. Just the music.

We’re still at the very beginning of his career, but at sixteen, Charlie has a lot of room to grow. If you get a chance, look them up. Charlie’s still learning, something he readily admits. Having just finished Country Roads, his first album, coming out in September on MAC Records, he’s already taking lessons from the experience and wanting to change some of his music styling to faster-paced, more high-intensity music than you’ll find on that record.

I have to say, if he follows through on that, it will be something to see. I enjoyed the ballads, which were well written and performed, but they don’t play to Charlie’s strengths. He gave us a few glimpses of what that might look like with his long solo in Backstage, along with Jesse James and the oddly fun One Night Stand. Even those, for all their intensity, don’t live up to what I feel this amazing young man might be capable of, if he manages to take the leash off his writing.

Charlie and the Wild Cats tour the region occasionally and play most other weekends at a small club up in Wellsville called The Blue Ridge. If you have a chance, I highly recommend you check these guys out before they become a nationwide sensation and we have to start sharing them with the rest of the country.

“Wow,” I said, setting the paper down. “I wasn’t even sure he liked us all that much. When he was asking about how I ended up on the mix of genres we played, he made it sound like we’d be better off choosing one to stick to. This makes it should like he thinks the mix of genres is what sets us apart.”

“Maybe he was trying to get you to say something juicy that he could use, like something about the people in your band or maybe the studio,” Kat, who came into the kitchen as I was reading the review, said.

“Or maybe he just had more time to think about the show,” Mrs. Phillips said. “Sometimes, our first response isn’t always what we really think, and you change your mind after you’ve had time to reflect. It’s why I’m always suggesting you kids take your time before rushing into judgment or making a decision. It’s rarely so urgent that you don’t have time to think about what you’re going to do.”

I didn’t know if that was also subtext about what to do with my dad and the missing money. I’d already told her about it, and she said to wait and see what else happened before rushing to judgment. She pointed out that I wanted my mother to be my manager, and while my dad’s actions and her allowing them to happen was a bit extreme, I needed to trust her to handle it.

Honestly, I wasn’t terribly sure that was good advice. I still couldn’t come up with a single reason that would make letting dad take money out of the band's account okay. Even if it was to ‘help with songwriting,’ she could have said something to me first. I hadn’t asked about his help. I found it hard to believe she couldn’t see how unhappy I’d been with his presence since he’d gotten home, and how that would mean I wanted to spend money so we could be together more often.

Of course, maybe I was reading too much into Mrs. Phillip’s statement. Right now, I wanted to bask in my first glowing review, and maybe call up the rest of the band. Although he spent a lot of time talking about me, he talked about the band as a whole and even name-checked Lyla’s song. Marco might find a way to be pissed about it, but Lyla and Seth would probably be excited. This was big for us. It was printed in a local newspaper, so probably not so big as to get us a bunch of gigs or drive a huge new turnout to the Blue Ridge, but maybe it would move the needle a little bit.

I also wanted to call Hanna. She’d pushed me, maybe more than anyone else, to chase this dream and had really supported me from day one. The way I saw it, this was as much of a win for her as it was for the rest of us.

As ways to start your day go, getting a glowing review was definitely a preferred one.