CHAPTER 16
"Wrists feel tight, not like the other day," Jimmy was saying, shaking his hands.
It was Saturday afternoon, and they were back in Jenny's brother's room, all six of them this time, plus Mrs. McCoy looking on. Bo had his guitar and amp plugged in, Jimmy was at the drums, and they were rehearsing 'Wipeout' .
"Dude, there's nothing wrong with your wrists," Bo said. "What it is, you're starting to feel the pressure of tonight. Just relax, and let your sticks rip."
"Yeah, remember, you're The Destroyers now," said Adler, smiling. "So destroy the drum set."
Jimmy glared at him. "I was you, I'd stick with breaking into computers instead of trying to be a comedian," he said.
"Ah hum," Bo said.
"Jimmy's just joking, Mom," Jenny said.
"Here's the deal," said Bo. "I checked out the talent show web page last night. Old Man Riggins--sorry, Mrs. McCoy--Mr. Riggins, has all the rules posted. Each act has a ten minute limit."
"Gee, that's a long time," said Melissa.
"Really," said Jenny. "I can't see Allison and Mekena dancing for close to that long."
"Or Dirk Lefroni going more than a couple minutes with his unicycle routine," Adler said.
"Or how long can Myers juggle those bowling pins he's always messing with?" Jimmy said.
"Or how about Rachel Wainwright," said Melissa, "How many verses of 'Over the Rainbow' can she sing?"
"My piece was supposed to go long last year," said Mackie. "Of course, it got cut short."
Everyone was quiet.
Mackie was a skilled piano player, easily the best in the school. What had happened last year was, at about the half way point of the classical Beethoven sonata he was playing, his glasses started to fog up. It may have been the heat of the auditorium, it may have just been his face getting hot and sweaty from playing hard, or it may have been from tension.
Whatever the cause, it got so Mackie could barely read his sheet music through the fogged up lenses, and he started slowing down. Finally he stopped playing altogether and took his glasses off and tried to wipe them. He started up again but still couldn't see well enough, so he took the glasses back off and tried to play without them. This was even more of a disaster, because now he was squinting to try and read sheet music that was out of focus, and he started making mistakes.
Soon his fingers couldn't find any correct keys at all, and every note he played was a wrong one. The Beethoven sonata that had started out so perfect now sounded like a three year old kid smashing around haphazardly on an old piano. Mackie could hear the audience making noise and he was pretty sure people were laughing. He closed his music, popped up and scrambled off the stage.
"Yes, but Walter," Jenny said, after a minute, "one little unlucky incident doesn't change the fact that you're a terrific piano player."
"Oh, thanks," said Mackie.
"Ever play anything besides classical, like rock for instance?" Bo asked.
"I don't know. Never really tried it, I guess."
"What you need next time," said Jimmy, "is a headband. Something to catch that sweat, dude! Or maybe we can get you one of those masks like you see them wearing on TV when it's 50 below zero at Green Bay Packers football games. Then you can keep the sweat off your big glasses and no one even has to know who you are."
Jimmy put his arm around Mackie's head and pulled it down in a friendly headlock. With his other hand he started digging his knuckles into Mackie's scalp.
"Hey!" said Mackie.
"Gonna keep this up until you start smiling," Jimmy said.
"Okay, stop, I'm smiling--I mean it!"
Jimmy checked, but Mackie wasn't smiling, so he started tickling him under the arms. Mackie tried to squirm away but Jimmy didn't let him. Mackie started to smile and soon was laughing uncontrollably.
"That's better," Jimmy said.
"Anyhow, I got to thinking," Bo said, "if we could stretch it out the full ten minutes, we could kind of like, dominate the action."
"That's a lot of drum solos, though," said Adler.
"Good point. The way I thought we'd handle it, we'd kick it off with 'Wipeout' the same way, with the three drum solos, and then we'd continue with a bunch of other stuff to fill up the rest of the time."
"What other stuff?" asked Jimmy.
"Couple things I downloaded and worked out overnight, kind of a medley," Bo said.
"Let's try it--it's all just bass drum, snare and straight 4/4 time on the high hat. Or you can switch to the ride cymbal any time you want."
Bo started playing. Everyone recognized it was 'surf' music, similar to 'Wipeout', maybe just a little more complicated. No doubt it was old music, but it sounded fine. Bo seemed able to easily run one melody into the next. Jimmy kept up pretty well.
"Wow!!" said everyone in unison.
"The four songs went together okay?" Bo asked.
"And you're telling us you worked all that out overnight?" Melissa said.
"Uh, well actually I kind of didn't go to bed. I wanted to get it down."
"Honey, that was one of the most beautiful guitar medleys I've ever heard!" said Mrs. McCoy.
"Mom!" said Jenny.
"Oops, sorry about that Bo. I recognized them all, but the only one I can name is 'Secret Agent Man'. What were the others?"
" 'Walk Don't Run' and 'Diamond Head' by the Ventures," Bo said, "and I start it off with 'Pipeline' by The Chantays."
"That's right, 'Pipeline'! It's a classic. A man named Dick Dale sort of invented that whole style of guitar playing."
"Right, I love Dick Dale! And I guess Chuck Berry had something to do with it too, right?"
"He certainly did," Mrs. McCoy said. "You can hear the influence of those two players on everyone from The Beach Boys to even many of your modern artists you find on the radio today."
"Okay mom!" Jenny said.
"Well, I seem to be getting a bit carried away. I'll be downstairs in the kitchen, then. Whenever you kids like, we have delicious deli sandwiches for everyone."
"Man, I love your mom," Bo said.
"That is one cool older person," Jimmy said.
"Please...!" said Jenny.
"Jimmy, let's run through this thing again, from the top," Bo said.
"She have any potato chips with those sandwiches?" Adler asked.
"You don't shut UP," Jimmy said, "you're not gonna find out."
