Playing by Ear (Country Roads #1) - Chapter 6

I liked Saturdays, mostly because mom doesn’t work until the afternoons. Most kids my age would probably try and stay in their rooms, hiding from their parents, and they’d almost certainly find me looking forward to spending time with my mom Saturday mornings weird. They probably also hadn’t grown up traveling the country, or at least the eastern seaboard, with their parents, never stopping in one place.

I’ll admit it made for a strange mother-son relationship, but I was happy about it. I won’t go so far as to say she was my best friend, but since I hadn’t had many opportunities to make friends my age, I probably couldn’t say she wasn’t either.

Since we moved into the trailer and finally set down roots, we did the same routine every Saturday. She’d make pancakes and we’d tell each other about our week since we didn’t get a chance to talk much during the week itself. Over the summer, these conversations usually revolved around her telling me about her week at work, since I hadn’t done enough to talk about.

“So,” she said, setting the plate of pancakes between us, “anything interesting happened this week?”

I gave her my best ‘un-amused teenager’ look.

“Fine, be that way. I guess I know how the beginning of the week went. Tell me about everything else. How was your first week at school?”

“Actually, really good. The one plus side of this,” I said, pointing my fork at my medical boot covered foot, “was it introduced me to Hanna. She’s taken pity on me and introduced me to a bunch of other kids at school. I spent the first couple of days sitting with them.”

“Only the first couple of days?”

“Uhh, yea. There’s this girl in my English class. We were partnered up on my first day on a group project and kinda hit it off. She invited me to sit with her friends.”

“I take it they were more interesting then Hanna and her friends since you stayed sitting with them?”

I’d tried to keep my voice neutral, but clearly, I hadn’t been successful since mom had a glint in her eye and had started fishing.

“Most of them are okay, well except for one girl who seems really shallow.”

“Not this girl, though?”

I gave her the look again.

“What’s this girl’s name?”

“Rhonda.”

“Do we need to have a talk about birds and bees?”

“God, no. Besides, we’re just eating lunch together.”

She laughed at my obvious discomfort.

“I take it you want more than just lunch though, right?”

“I guess.”

She still had the evil glint in her eye, but thankfully let the subject drop.

“What about your classes?”

“Some good, some bad. Most of my classes are pretty good, except for math. I’m really having a tough time.”

“I know I probably didn’t do you any favors there. Math was never my best subject either. I was worried you might be under-prepared. I’ll admit I was a little worried about how you’d do transitioning into public school.”

“It hasn’t been so bad. Mostly they talk for a little bit then hand out worksheets. Except for my history class.”

“They don’t give you worksheets in history?”

“They do, I meant most of my classes weren’t so bad except for my history class. The teacher is one of the football coaches, and the kids I got in a fight with are some of his favorites or something. He really has it in for me.”

“Has he treated you unfairly? Do you want me to call the school?”

“No, at least not yet. We haven’t really had that much in the way of graded work yet, so I don’t know if he’ll grade me unfairly. What we have had were questions with one right answer, so it would have been hard for him to grade me differently. Mostly he’s just gone out of his way to be a jerk to me.”

“Well, if it’s just attitude, you’re going to have to suffer through. We can talk to the school if there’s actual grading you unfairly, but you’re never guaranteed to have teachers that like you.”

“Yeah. I wasn’t planning on doing anything. I just thought I’d mention it.”

“Ok. So how was your first day at work?” she asked.

“Good. Hard, at least working in the kitchen. I worked with the guy who took care of the sides, and everything goes really fast. Everything has to be ready the moment the main part of the dish is ready to go in the window. Plus, it’s hot as hell.”

“I was a little worried when you mentioned this, but now that I’ve had some time to think about it, I think it’s a good thing. It’ll teach you responsibility and self-reliance. God knows your father and I weren’t the best examples of that growing up, living the way we did.”

“Willie, the musician that plays there, gave me my first lesson. It was amazing. Some of the people Dad played with sometimes showed me stuff, but nothing like this. He explained why things are played this way or that. He’s apparently an old school blues guy, so I was expecting him just to teach me some songs or whatever, but this was like a real lesson.”

Mom tried to keep her face passive, but she didn’t do a great job of it.

“Just don’t let that interfere with what you’re being paid to do. It’s fine you like playing, but you don’t want to get fired because you’re too busy with your hobby.”

It was my turn to try and keep my emotions off my face. Mom was never going to accept me playing music beyond just a hobby. While I wasn’t sure it was what I wanted to do as a career, I wanted to keep the options open.

Mom just saw the same dead-end where Dad ended up. It was a little hard to get my head around how much she disliked me spending time practicing guitar when she’s been so supportive of Dad for nearly my entire life. She’d never been as enthusiastic about me learning as Dad had been, but she’d been supportive of it right up to the day Dad was sentenced.

That was one thing I still hadn’t gotten my head around. Looking back, it was as if she’d become a different person that day. She started looking for a place for us to settle down the same day he was walked out of the courtroom in handcuffs, and within a week, we were headed to our new home in Wellville. That was the same day she started making comments any time I picked up my guitar.

We finished our breakfast, and I went to work on homework. I was still stuck on some of my math and marked a few problems that I’d ask for help with on Monday. That meant I’d have to beg off sitting with Rhonda, but there were now several things I didn’t understand, and just ignoring it to sit with a girl I kind of liked wasn’t a great plan for the future.

Eventually, Mom headed off to work. As soon as she was out the door and in the car, I pulled out my guitar and took the opportunity to practice. I wanted to work on some of the stuff Willie had shown me the night before. If I was honest with myself, I was trying to get what he’d shown me down so I could show him how hard I worked and that I could learn what he was teaching me.

Hanna showed up earlier than I expected before I’d gotten ready, which annoyed her. I’d lost track of time, which happened a lot when I was practicing. One of the things Hanna seemed to hate more than anything else was to be kept waiting.

I thought she was going to rip into me as I packed up my stuff and got ready to go, but instead, she said, “Sam called and asked if you’d go with him to Trianglecon, in April.”

“What’s ‘trianglecon?'”

“It’s some sci-fi convention thing. He went last year, and I swear it’s all he would talk about for months. It’s in Raleigh, but they call it that I guess because of the research triangle.”

“I’m not really into science fiction.”

“I get that, but you should know this is a big deal for Sam. You could have probably guessed he exists in his own little world and doesn’t have a lot of friends. Mom thinks he might be on the spectrum, but Aunt Shirley refuses to have him tested or whatever. Anyways, his inviting you is a pretty big deal, since he’s never invited anyone to pretty much anything before.”

“I only said like four words to him. Why would he want me to go?”

“Aunt Shirley said he talked about you a bunch all the way back to Raleigh. You apparently made a big impression on him.”

“I’m going to have to go, aren’t I?” I said, figuring out where this was heading.

“Pretty much. It won’t be so bad.”

“You better hope not, ‘cause if I have to go, then his favorite cousin has to go with me.”

“Wait ...”

“Nope, that’s my price. I’ll go to Sam’s convention thing with him, but you have to go too.”

“Fine,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Let’s go to work, we’re going to be late.”

On the way to the Blue Ridge, I decided to bring up something that had been bugging me.

“I’m confused by something.”

“It was bound to happen. You see, when a young man reaches a certain age, his body starts to go through changes ...”

“Smartass,” I said, interrupting her.

She gave a self-satisfied grin at her little joke and said, “What are you confused by then?”

“You, actually. The first day - at the hospital, and then at dinner with your mom - I seemed to be an annoyance, more than anything else, to you. After the first trip to the Blue Ridge, you did a one-eighty and inviting me to lunch with your friends and talking me up. Since then, you don’t seem nearly as annoyed by the rides your mom’s making you give me as you did when she first brought it up. I’m confused. What caused the change of heart?”

Hanna didn’t say anything at first, just looking out the window as she drove us to work. I thought for a second I’d said something wrong and pissed her off before she finally replied, not glancing over at me.

“My sophomore year and the beginning of last year I’d had some friends that were... not the best. It led to some problems, which I’m not going to talk about. Mom pointed out the other night after you came over for dinner that she thought it was time that I started making actual friends again and suggested that I should start with becoming your friend.”

“You seemed to have a lot of friends at lunch?”

“I’m actually fairly new to that group, and we basically just eat lunch together because we didn’t have any other groups that we fit into really. We don’t hang out after school or anything. I mean, sure, we’re friends and all, but that’s about it. Anyways, I pointed out that you were a lot younger than me and we didn’t really know anything about you. She said that we knew what you did for Sam and that was enough. I thought about it and I figured what the hell, which is why I invited you to eat with us. I may have overcompensated a little since it’s been a while since I’ve actually tried to become friends with someone, and back then, it was... different.”

“Ohh,” I said, not sure how to respond. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Just don’t annoy me too much.”

She said the last part with a smile, so I knew she was joking. Mostly.

“So, I’m on probation?”

“Yep. Bribes wouldn’t hurt your standing with me, though.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

When we got to work, Willie was sitting out on the front porch waiting for me with two guitars. Hanna went inside and I sat down with Willie, who picked up on what he’d been teaching me the night before. I continued to be surprised by the technical detail Willie got into, with a lot of what the detail he went into feeling more like something I’d hear in a classroom setting than from old-school musician.

I’ll admit that was probably my own bias talking. I didn’t know much about Willie’s background and had built him up along the stereotypes I’d seen in movies or read in books. While he was an old school blues musician, he was also clearly much more than that.

He added more exercises to the ones I’d learned the night before that would help make some of the trickier chord progressions smother. He also made some small changes to my strumming technique he said would help me pick up speed when needed. The thing I found the most interesting is when he would switch from specific techniques, to the theory of why things were played in certain ways. He only said a few things about it, but this was something I hadn’t gotten in the lessons with my dad or the musicians at the clubs who taught me to play. They always taught me specific techniques, but not why those things were played.

I mentioned this to him when we finished up.

“Theory’s great, and I’ll try to teach ya what I know but ya need technique if you’re gonna play. When you need theory is if you’re writin’ your own music or jamming. ‘Course, if you have enough of a feel for the music, you can get away without knowin’ that much theory. I’ll be honest, I don’t know all that much. The only trainin’ I ever got was experience and what I heard from others. If you want to get serious writin’ your own music - or, god forbid, producing music - then you’ll have to learn from others. Till then, just focus on how to play as good as you can, and learn to trust your feelin’ for what’s the right thing to play. What we can start doin’ is I’ll teach you some of my songs and explain why they were written the way they were.”

“That sounds great. I’ve actually worked a little on ideas I’ve had for songs, but I couldn’t get the hang of it. Everything just sounded like a copy of something else.”

“You’d be surprised how much that happens. Hell, listen to the radio, and you’ll hear tons of music that sounds just like something else that played not ten minutes before. While it’s hard to keep the music you like from showin’ up in your own songs, it’s pretty darn easy to let your songs just become a copy of that music. I’ll try and point out ways I worked to keep that from happenin’ in my songs. I’ll also try to show you ways I’ve changed the sound here or there in a song to help people feel what my music is sayin’ at that moment.”

“I’d really appreciate that. I just want to learn as much as I can, you know.”

“Charlie, you’re better than anyone I’ve known at your age. Hell, when I was fifteen, I wasn’t anywhere near as good as you are now. You keep that attitude up and keep workin’ hard and you’ll be amazing. I guarantee that. While there’s a certain amount of talent that goes into bein’ a great player it’s still a skill. You put in the work and you’ll see the results. That I can promise. Now, we’re past the time you were supposed to work with me. Chef wanted you to spend some time with him before the rush started.”

“Okay,” I said, handing the guitar back to Willie. “Thanks again.”

Diego and Chef were in the kitchen talking when I walked in with a couple of the other kitchen staff I’d met the night before when we were cleaning and prepping food.

“Done with Willie?” Chef asked when I walked up to the two of them.

“Yes, Chef.”

Turning back to Diego, he said, “Have Vincent finish prepping the chicken and get the bisque started. Have Terry get the veggies prepped and, if he has time, show him how to prep the salmon.”

“Yes, Chef,” Diego said.

“Come with me.”

Chef didn’t look at me; just turned and walked out the back of the kitchen. I followed, assuming the command was directed to me and not Diego, who’d already started talking to Vinney.

“When Hanna talked to me about you working here, she mentioned that she thought you were still going to have problems at school with the kids who broke your foot. Do you think she’s right?”

“Probably. Aaron, he’s apparently the leader of his little group, tried to come at me in the hallway one morning. I’m not worried about him, though.”

“Then you’re an idiot.”

That was not the response I’d expected.

“What?”

A couple of chairs sat around behind the back door. From the empty tomato can full of cigarette butts, they were probably used by people who came out back to smoke or on breaks. Chef pointed at one of the empty chairs and pulled another one around for himself to sit facing me.

“Let me tell you a little bit about my background. My father grew up in one of the temples back in China, learning Buddhist teachings and training in martial arts. When the party took over and closed most of the temples, he was sent to a farming community where he met my mother. Even though he didn’t grow up to be a monk, he never stopped practicing on his own and I grew up learning from him, probably a lot like how you grew up learning music from your father.”

I nodded but didn’t interrupt, still unsure of where he was going with all this.

“When I was a teenager, the party loosened up on their restrictions on the teaching of traditional forms of martial arts as part of the Era of Reconstruction. Since my father had grown up training in the temples and continued to practice in secret during the repressions, he was invited by the new schools that started showing up as a visiting teacher. Since he’d been teaching me, I traveled with him as his assistant. Other martial arts practitioners, especially those from styles popularized in other countries, started making the rounds at the same time. I got a chance to learn a wide range of disciplines from kickboxing to judo to aikido. Much like I think you did with music, I fell in love with it and learned everything I could.”

“As my father’s health started fading, I began traveling on my own as a visiting teacher. An early version of what would now be called mixed martial arts had started to become popular in places like Japan and Thailand and was beginning to show up in China. I decided to supplement my income by competing in these and found I was pretty good at it. I spent the next several decades either training or fighting, eventually coming to the US to fight in the early UFC fights.”

“In all that, I learned that even the most amateur, worst trained opponents could do damage if I wasn’t careful, and sometimes even if I was careful. I learned that physical conflict is always something to take seriously and worry about. Confidence is important, but recklessness is deadly. From the way Hanna described it, this boy is bigger than you?”

“Yes. He plays football.”

“Describe your fight to me, step by step. What you did and what your opponents did. I know you’re limited by your foot, but try and show me as much as you can.”

I described the entire fight to him, trying to be as thorough as possible, although some parts of it were a little confusing since it all happened so fast. It wasn’t a long story since the fight lasted less than a minute, but Chef didn’t interrupt. He stood there listening without giving me any indication as to what he was thinking.

When I finished, he said, “Why did you just charge in?”

“Sam was already on the ground, and they had spread out around him. It looked like Aaron, although I didn’t know that was his name at the time, looked like he was starting to reach down, to either grab or hit Sam. These guys were doing this in broad daylight in someone’s back yard, which suggested they didn’t really care if they got caught. I reasoned me just telling them to leave the kid alone wasn’t going to do any good, and I couldn’t just let them beat Sam up, so I decided to do something. While I hadn’t been in a fight before, I’d watched my dad get into several over the years and it seemed like the person who got the first shot in always had a leg up. Figuring I could use surprise to my advantage and build up some momentum, I got a running start and hit him as hard as I could. It hurt my hand like hell, but he did drop.”

“You understand that outnumbered as much as you were, you could have been severely injured, right?”

“Yes. I told the kid to run, and once he was out of the way and running into the house, I hoped he would go tell someone and get help. Which he did.”

“What do you think would have happened if he didn’t find help?”

“I probably would have been really hurt.”

“Does this Aaron seem like the type that believes in fair fights?”

“Considering he was trying to beat up a little kid and take his money with the help of two others, no.”

“Then why would you not be worried about him?”

“Because things are as they are. I did what I did, and made an enemy of him. I don’t regret my decision to help Sam, and there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about Aaron.”

“While I can appreciate the sentiment of realism and acceptance, in this case, there is something you can do. Hanna asked me to help you learn to defend yourself from these boys and I’ve agreed as long as you’re willing to put in the work. Are you?”

I hadn’t considered it but, after giving it a moment’s thought, it didn’t sound like a bad idea. Aaron was a problem that wouldn’t go away any time soon, and he seemed like the type that would arrange for him and several friends to jump me when no one else was around. Considering how much of a pain in the ass this boot was, I wasn’t looking forward to being laid up again if I could avoid it.

“Yes, Chef.”

“Good. Hanna has agreed to come up here on weekdays when you’re not working so you can get in extra training time. You’ve got a lot to learn, and you need to get in better shape if this is going to work. Keep in mind I expect your homework to be done, also. I don’t want you using this as an excuse to let your school slip. I’ll feed you guys too and Hanna will have you home before it’s too late. I know at the moment your mobility is a problem so we’re going to start with a focus on low impact exercises to build up your strength and stamina and work on foundation techniques until that boot comes off. Let’s get started.”

After an hour, when it was time for me to get cleaned up, I wasn’t so sure this was a great idea. Every muscle was tired, and my body felt like a wet noodle, and I still had the whole dinner service to look forward to. Chef lived on the second floor of the restaurant and let me use his apartment to get cleaned up.

I was second-guessing this new schedule by the end of the night. Chef didn’t cut me any slack through dinner service and kept telling me to push through the exhaustion. The entire night was a blur that I could barely remember when we finished and Hanna took me home. I actually fell asleep on the short drive from the Blue Ridge to home and my legs were so shot that Hanna had to help me up the steps to the trailer.

Chef had told me that, as I built stamina and got used to this level of activity, my body would adjust, and things would get easier, but I had a sneaking suspicion that he would just up the difficulty every time I adjusted.

Still, I’d agreed to put in the work, and I trusted him to make the end result worth it.