Fanfare (Country Roads #2) - Chapter 4

After dealing with Rhonda, I didn’t feel much like being around people. Not because I’d hoped to win her back or anything, since I’d already closed the door to that ever happening again, since there was no way I could actually trust her. It just hurt how easily she’d been able to cut me out of her life after the time we spent together. It sucked to find out I was disposable, at least to her.

I did stop by and let everyone know I wasn’t staying for lunch. Partly because I didn’t want them thinking I was ditching them, but also because I knew Kat would start getting anxious.

“Hey, I need to go off by myself for a little bit,” I told her as she started to follow me away from the table.

We were a few steps from the table, but I kept my voice low just in case. Besides Hanna, who I trusted not to say anything, no one really knew what the deal was with Kat, besides the fact that she was hanging around me and Hanna more.

“Did I do something to …?”

“No,” I said quickly. “You’re fine. I just ran into Rhonda and it left me feeling sad is all. I just need a little time by myself to clear my head. Would you be okay staying with Hanna for lunch?”

“Uhh, yeah, I guess,” she said, looking around nervously.

“I’ll still see you after baseball practice. You’re okay with Hanna watching out for you, right?”

While that question would have sounded bad to anyone who overheard us, it was something I needed to ask. Ever since I’d agreed to help take responsibility for her, since her condition made her susceptible to other people, she’d started to become more reliant on me, which was probably one of the reasons the psychologist had warned against her getting too attached. If I gave her specific instructions or it was something routine where she didn’t have a choice, she could do her own thing, but otherwise, she was less willing to be off on her own than she had been when we’d met.

While I didn’t usually mind, since the alternative had proven to be worse, it did become inconvenient at times. Hanna and I had talked it over when she got back from vacation, and she’d agreed to try and see if it was possible to have her with Kat as some kind of substitute. I’d told Kat what we were doing, but I made sure to explain it as a way to help her condition, since Kat was often hypersensitive when she thought she had done something wrong or had bothered someone. We’d only had a few chances so far, and Hanna was the only one I trusted to help with this, since we’d also agreed to not tell people about Kat’s condition, since if people knew they might try and take advantage of her, as Aaron had done.

There wasn’t a lot to it, honestly. It was mostly being a human security blanket. She wasn’t a child and was perfectly capable of doing everything for herself. She just started to get anxious if left to her own devices. It had probably started because she was afraid that she might end up in a confrontation, which is what actually triggered her panic attacks, but that had started to shift into anxiety just being on her own. Thankfully, she’d started trusting Hanna enough that she worked as a substitute when I needed to be somewhere else, although she’d already started making comments about preferring me instead. If I was being honest, it was a bit much sometimes, but it was my own fault. I’d taken on the responsibility for her to keep her away from Aaron, so now I had to deal with the consequences.

“Yeah,” she said, looking at her feet. “I can go with you to the Blue Ridge after practice though, right?”

“Yeah, although I swear I don’t know how you don’t get bored, just sitting in a booth while I practice.”

“I get my homework done. Plus, it’s really quiet before the dinner rush and everyone’s nice.”

“Well, you’re always welcome to come with me then. Go back with Hanna and I’ll see you later.”

She gave me a smile and went back to the table, sitting next to Hanna. I went to the choir room, which was empty, since the whole school had the same lunch. I hadn’t come here since school got back, but at the end of last semester I came here a lot, especially during the time when everyone at our lunch group was mad at me, before I got things resolved between Hanna and Kat.

I actually liked it, since it was quiet and I could work on writing music. I could write other places too, of course, but it helped to have something to play notes on when I was trying to work out a particular piece of music. I only played a little piano, since guitar had always been my preferred instrument and it would have been hard to fit a piano in an RV, but I didn’t need much. It wasn’t like I needed it to play a piece full speed. I just needed to know the notes enough to go slowly through a section in my head and hear it aloud.

I still had finishing work to do on Country Road, which I’d finished in its most basic form before Christmas. I liked it and had played it a few times at the Blue Ridge, but it still felt like it was missing something. Besides that, I had two new, untitled pieces I was working on. One was a break-up song, but told from the perspective of two mockingbirds. I liked the idea of taking something people knew, like a break-up, but putting it in an unfamiliar package. I also had this nice piece in verse two that played off the old Mockingbird nursery rhyme.

Be quiet, don’t say a word, I’m no longer yours, not your mockingbird. I’m done with this, I’ve already been burned. I’m not gonna sing and there’s never gonna be a ring.

The chorus was more about broken nests and broken homes, but I liked the playoff of something familiar like that old song, although it still needed some work. Just like with Country Roads, it felt a bit too one-dimensional.

“Hard at work, I see,” Mr. French said, startling me.

“Yeah. I had a rough conversation and needed some alone time. I used to go home and play a few songs to calm down, but I’ve found that working on songs has a lot of the same effect on me.”

“Music is music, whether you’re playing it or writing it. If you’ve got the bug, you get lost in it, and everything else goes away. I liked that little thing you were playing a second ago.”

“Yeah. I liked the progression. It sounds sad, which is what I’m going for.”

“What you’ve done is pretty close to a famous chord progression from a ballad that was popular thirty years ago. You’ve got the C Lydian scale sound, going into a darker C natural minor sound. That takes you from what I think of as a bright scale and pulls it to one that’s not as bright, which is why it feels sad.”

He came over and sat on the bench next to me, shooing me over a bit so he could reach the keys.

“If you keep what you have for the vocal melody, you can pair it with this for the instrumental. If you take the F-sharp and the A in the D7 chord slump and bring it down to the F and A-Flat in the F minor chord. If you’re still working on lyrics, think about starting with something happy at the beginning of that and moving to sadness at the end and you’ll find it matches the progression of the music towards something that almost feels melodically dejected, because of the chromatic descent. It’s not far off of a lot of blues riffs, which go from D7 to F-minor to C.”

I tried it, singing along the words I had in place. He was right, it did sound like it was getting progressively sadder, although I’d had to rewrite some of the words. His suggestion of starting the chorus somewhere happy and have it fall into something sad by the end worked better with the music, giving everything more of a feeling of actively losing something, rather than just being sad about having lost something. Since music was all about the emotion it could bring out in the audience, Mr. French’s method was the way to go.

“Thanks, that’s better.”

“Good. I like what you’re doing; you just need to keep working on it. I was just thinking about this before you came in. Everything I’m writing sounds kind of one-dimensional, ya know?”

“I do, and it’s something a lot of new musicians need to work on to get around, especially those who start specializing in an instrument and then expanded from there. You tend to think in terms of your preferred instrument, in your case the guitar, and everything else becomes kind of an afterthought. That’s probably what you’re noticing, especially if you’re comparing your music to something that’s fully produced. If you’re going to write music for real, you’re going to have to break away from that and think of it from a full performance standpoint, instead of just how you would play it. It’s a stumbling block a lot of young musicians have trouble getting over.”

“How do I get past that?”

“Well, the easiest way is to get a producer, which is what record labels tend to do with new musicians they sign.”

“I can’t afford that.”

“Probably not, but you can start learning to think like one. Producers are different than musicians, although a lot started out as musicians before transitioning into producing, or doing both.”

“I’m not even sure what a producer does.”

“Well, they come in all kinds, but the best producers are creative partners. They listen to what you’ve got in mind and help you build it out into something unique that can sell. They help mold your song out into a full piece. They listen to a lot of music, both contemporary and older, and have a firm grasp of theory and composition. Really good ones will also understand the music industry itself, and work with your manager to help make your album marketable.”

“That all sounds really expensive. How do I turn this into something that doesn’t feel so one-dimensional without a producer?”

“Well, I can help you some. I’m not a producer by any means, but I can point you to things you’re missing or that you might want to add. Beyond that, the best thing you can do is listen to music not as a fan, but as someone writing music. Listen to the entire song but also listen to the details. Listen for things like chord progressions, time signatures, patterns. Try to pay attention to instruments other than the guitar. What’s the drummer doing? What’s he doing to help everything else stay in time, and what’s he adding beyond that? What’s the bass doing? Is it helping lift the melody by counterposing what’s happening or are you just giving everyone a piece of a single melody, instead of layering it? Listen for unique sounds and instruments someone might have introduced that could add an interesting sound to your song. The more music you listen to, especially with a critical ear, the better you’ll get with your own music.”

“Okay, I can try that. Can you point out some stuff I’m doing here that I could change?”

“Sure. Let’s start with your time signature. This and Country Roads are such different songs, but you’re playing them both in the same time signature, which is probably because it’s what you’re most comfortable with.”

For the rest of lunch, Mr. French went over details I hadn’t considered, for the most part ignoring the main guitar part and lyrics, and focusing on the other instruments. The more he pointed it out, the more I realized he was right. I was writing everything as if it was just an offshoot of the main melody, which is probably why it sounded so one-dimensional. He showed me how the bass or drums could play against the melody, changing how the section felt, instead of just harmonizing or matching the rhythm.

While it still had a lot of work left to make all three songs sound like actual songs, I felt a lot better about them after the hour we spent working on it together.

I kept going back to the lesson the rest of the day and into the next, thinking about what popular songs did that made them stand apart, and what my songs were missing that theirs had.

***

“Nelson, if you want to stay on any team, you need to get your head out of your ass,” Coach Dean yelled at me as I missed a grounder he’d hit past me.

This was our second practice as a team, and he was still moving us around positions, trying to find the best place for us. I’d been on first base yesterday and was at shortstop today. I actually liked shortstop, but he was right, I wasn’t focused enough. I should have gotten that grounder, but I hadn’t been paying enough attention and moved too late, letting it bounce just past the edge of my glove.

I also knew why he was annoyed. The school’s facilities were really good, considering how rural Wellsville was, but we still only had the one practice field, that we shared with Varsity. One team would work on infield while the other worked on outfield, position-specific training, at the batting cage, or just conditioning, after which we’d switch. The day before, it felt like we’d barely gotten to our positions and started practice before we were told to switch out.

“Sorry, Coach,” I said, trying to focus better.

To my credit, by the time we were told to switch, five more had come my way that I did catch, including one really hard line drive.

“Infield, go to the batting cages. Outfielders, meet me in left field,” Coach Daniels called out.

Besides Coach Dean, who was in charge of Junior Varsity this year, and Coach Bryant, who was in charge of Varsity, we had two other coaches. Neither was actual faculty, but rather a volunteer from the community, who helped out with the baseball team as part of the PTA, or something. Coach Davis had apparently been a hotshot baseball player for the team five or six years ago before an injury in college killed any hope of a career. Someone mentioned he’d come back to town to help run his parent’s farm and Coach Dean had roped him into being the pitching coach.

The other coach was Coach Cooper, who was a lot older than the rest of them and worked with batters most days as a hitting coach. I hadn’t heard anything about his background or why he was volunteering to work with the baseball team, but I liked him. I’d only gotten about five minutes with him in the cage during the last practice, but it had been immensely helpful. He had a really good way of explaining what you were doing wrong without making you feel like an idiot for making a mistake. I was looking forward to my time in the cage today, getting another lesson, when I saw Harry making a beeline for me.

I was in a good mood and didn’t want to deal with his bullshit today, but the more I tried to swing around him, the more he moved to intercept me. Finally, I stopped walking and crossed my arms, waiting for him to say whatever he had to say so I could get on with my day.

“Pathetic. This is why they didn’t think you could hack it with the rest of us and put you with the little kids instead.”

Coach Dean had made it clear the only reason I was on Junior Varsity was because of Coach Bryant, but that didn’t matter. Anything I said to Harry would just egg him on.

“Whatever,” I said, starting to walk around him.

“Do you suck this bad at everything? Maybe this is why Rhonda decided to give a piece up to Aaron. You know, maybe I should go hit that, since she only likes real men.”

I rounded on him, my face going hot. Rhonda may have written me off, but I still hadn’t written her off completely, and I’d be damned if I was going to let Harry take these cheap shots.

“We both know the only reason you’re on Varsity and I’m not is Coach Bryant. You’re one of his special little boys. I wonder; is there a reason he always wants you with him, even when you don’t have what it takes?”

Normally, I didn’t engage in this kind of thing. For one, it never got me anywhere. Each person threw insults and everyone left pissed. Making him angry wouldn’t make me feel any better, so it was just a waste of time. For the other, it just pushed people like Harry into getting physical.

Although this time, that was the plan. I was sick of Harry’s shit. He’d run out of free shots at me. It was time for him to learn a lesson.

“Fuck you, Nelson.”

“I thought that’s what your special sessions with Coach Bryant were for.”

He telegraphed the swing a mile away, winding back before throwing a wild haymaker. I didn’t even have to block it and just took a step backward, letting him stumble as his fist sailed through empty air. I’d just switched into a solid stance when a voice behind me pulled me to a halt.

“Nelson! Torres!What the hell is going on over there,” Coach Dean bellowed, pulling both of us to a halt.

He stormed up to us, looking pissed.

“We don’t tolerate this kind of behavior on our team. If I see anything like this again, you’re both out of the program for the year. Do you hear me?”

Harry and I glared at each other.

“I said, Do You Hear Me!”

“Yes, sir,” we said in unison, finally breaking eye contact.

“Good. You both have somewhere to be.”

Harry looked back to me, giving me one last glare, before he walked past, making sure to ram his shoulder into mine as he did. I ignored it and turned back towards the batting cages when the coach grabbed my arm.

“Harry’s a hothead and I expect this kind of thing from him. I thought you were different.”

“I was just headed to the batting cages when he came up to me. I didn’t do anything until he took a swing.”

“I heard what happened and we both know you goaded him into it, to give you an excuse. I’ve heard what you did to Aaron Campbell and I’ve heard you’ve been training in some kind of martial art or something. I think you wanted him to swing at you to give you an excuse.”

I didn’t say anything, since he was right.

“I’ve seen enough to know you’re a good kid. This isn’t you. I’m hoping by your senior year you’ll be a leader on our team. We’ve never made it past district, let alone to regionals or state. You’ve got the potential to be a great player, which we need. More than that, I’ve watched you and you could be an even better leader, which is what we’re really missing. However, if this is the way you want to handle yourself, I’ll kick your ass out of here. Do better.”

“Yes, Coach.”

“Good. Get going.”

I jogged past him and got in line for my turn at batting practice. He was right, that hadn’t been like me. I was usually pretty good about ignoring their taunts. Hell, I hadn’t reacted to their jabs about Rhonda when we had been dating. There was no reason for me to want to pick a fight now that she’d broken up with me. I’d also gotten really close to breaking the zero-tolerance rule on fighting. It was after school, but this was still a school-sponsored practice, which meant it probably still applied.

Mom had already warned me what would happen if I got suspended again, especially for fighting. Harry was definitely not worth having to quit playing at the Blue Ridge over.

I wasn’t sure why I’d finally lost my cool with one of those idiots, maybe after months they’d finally gotten to me or maybe it was because Aaron was suing me just for defending myself. Either way, I needed to watch myself. They weren’t worth it.

By Wednesday afternoon, Harry had come at me twice more, trying to get under my skin. I’d also had a couple of run-ins with Paul Adams, the third of the trio of idiots. I did manage to keep my cool better and just ignore them, but they were definitely stepping up the harassment.

The only things that I could think of to cause it was either because I’d started playing a sport or because of the lawsuit, since they were the only things that changed from last semester. There wasn’t much I could do if Harry was just mad that I’d gotten a spot playing baseball, but I could at least check in with Mom on the lawsuit.

Since we found out about it a week before, she hadn’t said anything else, but she’d also seemed a lot more distant than normal. Although we didn’t spend all that much time together, since she was working all the time and I was busy with school and playing on the weekends, we usually managed to sit down and talk for ten or twenty minutes every day or two. We’d catch up on what the other one was up to, although it was usually Mom checking in on me, since she didn’t talk about her life much aside from saying she was good but busy. We broke the normal parent-teenager hostility we were supposed to maintain and I really enjoyed our time together. Mom’s distance was becoming noticeable, and I was pretty sure it was because of the lawsuit.

I was sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for her when she got home, a reversal of how she’d waited for me whenever something happened that she needed to talk to me about.

“Charlie?” she said ten minutes later, stopped halfway through the door. “Is everything alright?”

“That’s what I wanted to ask you. We haven’t talked in a while. Set yourself down and let’s talk.”

“Charlie,” she said, coming inside and closing the door behind her. “I’m tired and just want to go to bed.”

“Just sit down and let’s talk for five minutes and then I’ll leave you alone, I promise. We haven’t gone this long without talking since we moved to town, and I don’t like it.”

“Fine,” she said with a sigh, setting her things down next to the table and taking the seat I normally used when we had these conversations. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I haven’t heard anything about the lawsuit since you told me about it last week. I know you were worried about it and I want to help, since I got us in this situation.”

“You are helping, Charlie. I know I was against it when you first started, but with the money you’re bringing in from playing on the weekends, we might actually have a shot at finding a lawyer.”

“So you’ve found one?”

“Not yet. I’ve talked to most of the lawyers in the area, which admittedly isn’t a lot, but so far, no luck. Once they find out whose suing us, they all decide their schedules are too full. I’ve started calling some down in Ashville, but they want a pretty big retainer up front, and if it drags on very long, we won’t be able to afford to keep paying them.”

“I can ask Willie if he’s got more out-of-town gigs I can do on a few weekends. That paid a lot more than my part of the take at the Blue Ridge.”

“I appreciate you’re trying to think of a solution, but it won’t make enough of a difference, even if he found you one every weekend. Plus, you still have school work to focus on and you’d said something about baseball. Wouldn’t that get in the way?”

“I can quit the team. It’s still early and we haven’t played any games yet. This is more important.”

“It isn’t. If I thought you’d be able to get enough to make up the difference, then maybe … but I don’t. I’m not going to let you sell off your childhood for this. Worse comes to worst, we defend ourselves and declare bankruptcy when we lose. It’s not like my credit’s that great anyways.”

“We can’t give in to them, Mom. Aaron attacked me. We can’t just let them bully us into giving up.”

“Charlie, I’ve tried to protect you from the world, but sometimes this is the way it is. People who have money usually get to decide the outcomes when they come up against those of us without it. It’s the way the world’s always worked. All we can do is try to find the best way to make it through to the other side.”

“This is bullshit.”

“Watch your language, Charlie.”

“Come on, Mom. You can’t believe this is the best way. Please, let me talk to Chef.”

“No. That man has done enough. I’m not going to ask him to take on any more of our burdens. We’ll take care of this as a family. I’ve looked into it, and honestly, it won’t affect us that much. They can’t take our primary residence and I make much too little to have my wages affected. The only way we let them win is if we try and fight them. They can afford the costs, so any burden we take on helps them win a little bit more. Now, I’m tired and going to bed. Please don’t stay up too late.”

With that, she picked up her stuff and headed back towards her room. I didn’t try to stop her. She looked so tired, like she’d aged ten years over the last few weeks. I knew this was weighing on her, but I hadn’t realized it had made her ready to give up. Of my parents, she’d always been the real fighter, refusing to give up when things got bad. When Dad’s career tanked she’s the one who’d found gigs for him, so he didn’t have to give up his dreams. When he’d ended up in jail she’d found jobs and a place for us to live and set down roots.

Seeing her like this was disheartening. I didn’t like the idea of letting Aaron and his father win and I didn’t like the idea of Mom giving up. I had trouble getting to sleep and was exhausted when I got up, still worrying about Mom.

I was surprised when she seemed to be in a better mood the next morning. She even made breakfast again, which she hadn’t done in a week. I almost didn’t say anything, since I didn’t want to jinx her good mood, but I couldn’t help myself.

“You seem to be in a good mood.”

“I am, and it’s thanks to you.”

“Me?”

“Sure. I’ve been really upset about this whole thing. I think what I needed was to just say some of the stuff out loud, you know? I thought about it some more last night, and this really is the best course. They can’t get blood from a stone, so who cares what they do. I’ve looked at this every way I can, and we fall below the minimum threshold on just about everything they could try to get from us, so we’re completely safe. Yes, it might not feel great to give in to them, but really, if you think about it, they’re the ones losing. We just give in and do everything ourselves, and let them spend their money on fancy lawyers or whatever. I’ll file for bankruptcy and that’ll be that. It won’t affect you at all, since you’re a minor and technically they’re suing me and it’s not like I’ll suddenly get rich in the next seven years, which is how long the bankruptcy will affect me, I think. Knowing all that, it’s like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.”

“Ohh,” I said, not expecting that to be her answer. “So you’re happy to let them win?”

“Charlie, if there’s one thing I can teach you in this life, it’s this. Life isn’t about who wins and who loses. There aren’t any prizes at the end of the day. Doing something because you’re too proud or too afraid of losing is never a good idea. The only person you end up hurting is yourself. I know it’s hard to believe while you’re in high school, but pride is the least valuable thing you’ll ever have.”

“Dad always said a man wasn’t anything without his reputation.”

“And look where he ended up,” she said, before putting the spatula down and turning to face me. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Reputation can be important, sure, but there are different types of reputation. Reputation with your employers or friends as a good person or a hard worker, sure those are good. Making sure you don’t get a reputation as a thief or a bully, also good. Proving that you’re not afraid or meet some popular standard, that’s not a reputation you want. Getting sued by Aaron’s father won’t change my job and it won’t matter when you apply for college, so who cares.”

“You’re right, that isn’t like high school at all.”

“Look at Rhonda. From what you’ve told me, she did everything she did to become popular in school. How’d that work out for her?”

“Pretty bad.”

“Has Aaron bad-mouthing you hurt you with people you actually care about?”

“It kept me off of Varsity.”

“Wouldn’t you rather be with Coach Dean anyways, even if that other man didn’t have it out for you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to try and become some kind of major league baseball player?”

“No.”

“Then what does it matter. Go out and play baseball and have fun.”

She’d made good points and honestly, I’d had this same attitude at school for a while. Looking at it from that light, she was right, it didn’t matter if we gave in on the lawsuit.

“Okay,” I said as she set my food down in front of me. “At least we can get back to our lives now.”

“Yes. We win by not letting them make us feel worse. Now, tell me about your first couple of weeks at school.”