Just Throw In the Towel

Chapter 2

The place was your typical musician cave; a rented out storage space in a nondescript warehouse. Cables, speakers, amps, mic stands and mics were all strewn about. Rather, each set of equipment had its own place but to the untrained eye, the sheer amount of equipment stuffed into the relatively small room did nothing to sort the chaos. There was a drum set in the middle of the room with a rest for an electric keyboard. Soundproofing panels were glued on select parts of the walls. It was dark, save for a few dimly lit lamps around, and wouldn’t surprise anyone if there were no fire alarm systems in place. In typical San Francisco bohemian fashion, exotic rugs carpeted the floors which were accompanied by various counterculture idol posters and accoutrements scattered around the walls of the room.

In the dim, cramped space, the boy, Ella, her sister and a fourth figure were taking a break from their instruments and were stretching out. They had been jamming on several tunes for almost an hour. Ella’s sister walks straight towards the boy with a small container in hand and invites him to have some of her lunch.

“Have some,” she says, offering him a plastic tupperware’s worth of an egg pumpernickel sandwich. Her name was Hilary, the violin player, born to Greek and German parents; Ella’s younger sister.

The boy thanked her and, from this point onwards, slowly began warming up to her friendliness. Through her thick-rimmed glasses, he could make out little smiles as they spoke. Yup, oh yeah, she definitely digs me, he thought. He hadn’t had anything to eat the whole day and felt his body quiver a little as he devoured the food. He was never a big fan of pumpernickel, but anything was appetizing at this point.

He was invited by Ella to a jam session a few days after the awkward first meet with Hilary. In all honesty, if Ella asked him for anything (which she seldom did), he’d go out of his way to do it. Not that she really cared, she was just being friendly. But he didn’t see it that way.

Ella, one of these days I’m gonna start taking control of my nervous, rambling mouth and I’m gonna be firm and tell you how much I like you.

Ugh… no, wait, wait. That’s too much.

Ella, I think you’re just really pretty and, to be honest, I just really hope you’re not a lesbian because of the way you dre-JESUS, MAN.

See? This is why you’re such a pathetic noob when it comes to talking to girls. Can’t you just keep it in your pants and quit being such a little kid?

When you’re a boy at that age, anything a girl does for you could have you feeling higher than a kite for days. And, while he didn’t want to admit it then, he just wanted her to notice him. Ella. Foreign, pretty and outgoing.

Ella, I’ve always appreciated the solos you do. I think that we-

A pair of thick-rimmed glasses gives off a glint of light from the corner of his eye.

And now here’s Hilary. Thin, bookish, a music nerd out of nowhere who just starts giving him all this attention. All these girls, dear oh dear, what am I to do? He fantasized about a little love triangle between Ella, him and Hilary, feeling noticeably higher after thinking about it.

I can at least look Hilary in the eyes, he thought. He would always stutter and end up looking (and feeling) like a complete i***t whenever it came to talking to girls he found attractive. Most people probably would have gotten over the feeling of “butterflies in my stomach” after simply talking to their crushes, but not him. He was an absolute ball of nerves underneath it all. C’mon man, she’s totally into you!

“So what are you planning on doing while in San Francisco?” he asks Hilary. Her face softens a little and she begins to answer him, “I’m just testing the music scene out and seeing how things are here.” Hilary smiles and gives him her full attention. In spite of the less-than-adequate lighting, he sees her standing tall and “listening” with her whole body.

“Oh, I see, I see. Well that’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah. How long have you been playing sax?”

“About five years now.”

“Wow, you sound pretty good for five years.”

“Thanks, it’s all thanks to my Russian sax teacher (chuckles),”

“Are you still taking lessons with him?”

“No, not really. You know, I used to know somebody who played the violin, too but she stuck mainly with classical music. She’s studying to be a doctor now, though.”

“A doctorate in music?”

“No, no (chuckles), medicine.”

“Oh, I see. So which players do you listen to?”

And with that back-and-forth, the boy had officially racked in more conversation time with Hilary than Ella (Ella had been around the previous semester and in the same classroom with the boy). And… something else. The room, dark as it already was, just seemed to disappear around him. And now, Hilary was looking clearer and clearer.

Now, he didn’t seem to mind her skinny frame. No, not in the least. In fact, he didn’t even notice much else other than her eyes. They were hazel and they were looking right at him. No, they’re pretty. I mean, really pretty. He could barely see more than three feet in front of him, but he could see her. Ella? Who’s Ella? Her eyes followed his and they never broke contact. So this is Hilary. I think I like Hilary. He could feel his eyes moving, but only to keep hers in view. She smiled. And he didn’t realize it, but he was smiling too. An encounter that lasted about two minutes felt more like a few hours, in his mind.

Hold up, we’re rehearsing here.

The boy quickly blinks several times and does a double take at his saxophone to pull himself back down to earth. Rick, the fourth figure, clasps the neck of his electric guitar and wants to rehearse the last song one more time, “Alright man, let’s do it again.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Frankly, he just liked being the center of attention.

He was raised by parents who wanted nothing but success and the best for their baby boy. From his understanding (now in hindsight), they understood how important it meant for him not to succumb to the fake, pretentious culture of the masses. Only the best, nothing less. Every once in a while, he would remember the times when his mother would join him during after-school activities… and how she would seem less enthused than most of the other parents by being there.

Where most other parents would be content talking about politics or what ambitions they had for their kids or which teachers they liked best, his mom would be more interested in establishing more concrete connections with people. She wasn’t really a lady who gossiped in public or was interested at all in such lofty, on-the-fly topics of conversation (it made her more unpopular with other parents than she’d like to admit). Not to say that she was straight-laced or priggish, quite the opposite, she had dreams of helping the community; setting up good-quality schools to help kids with special needs. And plans on getting there.

And for better or worse, it rubbed off on him.

I’m going to bring jazz back, was his motto.

I’m going to make it popular again and everyone’s going to love me for it. And all those other sax teachers can stuff everything they’ve said back into their pieholes. Sheer will. That’s all it takes. Too many people give up before the stuff gets anywhere *near* tough. I did P90X two summers ago in Seattle and lost all that nasty fat that had my knees buckling and everyone calling me a fat faggot and had my mom consoling me every time saying I was just “husky”. I can win this, I know it. It’s all the P90X guy says anyway! I just need to stay the course and fight through that stupid feeling I get in the back of my mind when I start feeling uncomfortable about what I’m doing. SIMPLE!

In his mind, he was his own hero.