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threedimensions
threedimensionsDimensions: [1-2-3]
Timeline: May 2006
Title: That's The One
Summary: Brandon goes to an instrument store to scope out a birthday present and meets Mark.
~3.7k
Due to the entire clan moving from Boston to Chicago, Brandon's sixteenth birthday present had been put on hold. Which he understood, really. He hadn't cared enough to want a party with friends before they'd left, and while a few people had given him gifts, so far there had been nothing from his dad. He'd been great for all of the recent upheaval, too—a model teenager/eldest kid, getting his room packed and unpacked completely by himself and even helping with a bunch of kitchen and kid shit, babysitting almost constantly so that the adults could deal with all of the coordinating for the moves and jobs and whatever. He'd even helped move shit from the moving van into the new house, then had helped David move a bunch of his dad's shit upstairs from where the movers had left it in the living room, and then had spent an entire weekend with the kids, helping reassemble Shawn's crib and to get Shane and Sammie's rooms fixed up. He'd stayed out the way except for when someone was barking orders at him, he'd fed himself and the little kids, he hadn't even been blasting music (yet).
But now it had been a month since they'd moved. Two months since his birthday, and wasn't sixteen supposed to be a special one? Rich girls got huge parties and rich boys got new cars. Well. His dad was rich, where were his goods?
(The Saturn didn't count—his dad had agreed that he needed his license and a car to start driving the kids, and himself, around, and it was used. And it was perfectly fine, so it wasn't even like he wanted a new car, exactly...)
He was trying to be patient; it took time to get shit organized for such a huge move. Three doctors—specialists—needing jobs, Lynn and Gary/David needing houses, whatever legal shit had to go on for the houses to be bought (David had twice, pedantically, attempted to explain what escrow was to Brandon, but he had purposely not paid attention and would probably just look it up at some point on his own), then finding and getting Shane and Sammie and Shawn into the right preschool/daycare, unpacking and setting up everything else in the houses, etc etc. But now...his dad and David had both been back to work for almost three weeks and Lynn had been at her new hospital for two weeks, and Brandon had unpacked and set up everything he could in his dad's house that wasn't bedroom shit. It was approved with some city administration bullshit that he was still going to be homeschooled and he had even glanced through the online syllabus his dad had forwarded him. He couldn't think of anything else major that they still needed to deal with or fix or set up...unless his dad did think the car was his present? He was sure he'd mentioned getting him something after the move, though, and they'd picked up the car the weekend after he'd turned sixteen, which was about three weeks prior to the move.
He probably had actually just forgotten, as he might have been still dealing with new-job shit—just because he'd landed the position didn't mean there wasn't a breaking-in period. His leg didn't seem to be bothering him excessively, and he and David both (okay, and Brandon too) seemed happier now that they all had a lot more room to spread out in, but there could still be a lot on his mind. Brandon had known right away when he'd moved back to the states at eleven that his father was a cranky asshole who mostly kept his biting remarks in his head (if one was lucky) and only spoke to other people when it was necessary, but there had been a time a few years ago when he and his dad were closer, that Gary would talk to him more, even if it was something sarcastic about a dumbass he worked with. Ever since David had moved in, Dad had withdrawn from a lot more, including talks with his oldest son about life and other people and how to handle both.
On the plus side, Brandon didn't really even know what he wanted for his birthday yet, so he was mostly okay with taking more time to think about it and narrow down a few ideas. His dad wouldn't care too much for the specifics—he'd order him pretty much anything he wanted if he sent links—but he knew once he had something, it would be easier for him to remind his dad and ask him for something specific versus what could be seen as spoiled asshole whining for money. (And he even had money. Dad would give him that, too, if he wanted it, and after meeting Kylen and a few of her friends, and with how easy it was to get shit from Germy, he was starting to build back up his clientele. It wasn't money he wanted.) He thought about a new laptop and spent a few days researching them; he also considered a motorbike for quick jaunts around town, but decided against it pretty quickly when he read some stats on theft and accidents. Last year he had gotten a new phone, digital camera, and $500 cash card, so he knew he had a pretty high limit to play with.
On a rainy mid-afternoon on a weekend in May, Brandon woke up and knew immediately what he wanted: he wanted to play. And not just by himself, which was all he'd had since the move, but more importantly, he wanted to play something new. He got out of bed and went right for the long wall in his new attic room, where he'd set up his guitar on a stand next to the amp, and looked at it with his arms folded. Yep. Definitely: what kind of guitarist only had one? The Fender was great, but it was past time to step it up to something else. Maybe he could even get another pedal or some recording software. If he wanted to find some guys here in Chicago to play with, and to step up his playing, he needed some variety. First: online to research, then, less than an hour later, to an instrument store. He was a little excited as he dodged cars weaving in and out of lanes—Boston traffic could be heavy, but people in Illinois drove like assholes—and imagined looking at the guitars on display, taking them down and trying them out a little. Or a lot.
As soon as he went in, he could hear that, apparently, someone else had had the same idea. He looked around and saw that the store sold pretty much everything—it was mostly a wide, open room with a brass section, drums, several keyboards set up, a bunch of other shit he didn't really care about, and what seemed to be a whole separate room for guitars and basses. From behind a closed glass door came a loud riff that Brandon almost thought he recognized but couldn't put his finger on; either way, that was definitely where he wanted to go.
He went in and closed the door behind him, glancing at the guy on the other side of the room playing a Jackson, and looked around for the lefties. There was only one rack—typical—but at least there were some, and he was sure he could have them order in different models if he was willing to put down a deposit. This was just a scouting trip...so he took down a thirteen-hundred dollar Ibanez, which could still be okay but might be kinda pushing it, but goddamn it was beautiful. He glanced around and saw another amp with a cord plugged into the jack on his side of the room and a couple of straps that had been tossed on the floor in the general direction of a shoebox that read 'tryout straps', and decided he sure didn't mind if he did.
He had attached the strap and had just put the guitar on when the other guy stopped playing, the last chord he'd hit resonating for a few seconds until he switched off the Jackson and pulled the cord out, lifting the instrument over his head. Brandon glanced at him out of the corner of his eye while he ran his fingers over the strings on the Ibanez, trying to decide what he should play to put this one through its paces.
The other guy had been gazing over the wall of guitars he was facing, then looked back over his shoulder and turned a little, seeing Brandon standing there with the one he'd taken down and watching him. He lifted his hand a little. "Go ahead—I'm just looking."
"Yeah, me too," Brandon said, bending down for the cord near the other amp. He plugged it in and turned it on, tested its tuning, not liking it and needing to spend a minute or so messing with the keys before selecting a pick from a dish of several and trying out a riff. He grinned a little, liking the feel of this one, and played a little more—a Pumpkins riff, Alice in Chains, two of his own.
Very nice. Pricey, though...not that he couldn't supplement if his dad did think thirteen hundred was a bit much. This was his sixteenth, though, and he had been really good and helpful lately.
Maybe not. There were others. He switched off the Ibanez and removed the cord and strap, hanging it back up and reaching next for a PRS. That time he played only his own shit, and while it sounded good, he didn't quite like this one. Maybe the Epiphones, though he'd seen a lot of mixed reviews for them.
"Pretty good."
He looked up and over at the other guy in the room, whom he'd almost forgotten, and snorted when he saw him nodding sagely and digging in to what looked like a baloney on white. "Your sandwich, or...?"
The other guy, who had somewhat shaggy blonde hair and looked to about his own age, glanced down at it. "Nah. What you were playing. Was it yours?"
Slightly surprised, Brandon nodded as he fitted the strap to the Epiphone. "I did some of mine before I put back that Ibanez, too."
"Yeah? You play a lot?"
Brandon adjusted the tuning on this one too, but just slightly. "I'd like to...just moved here, so." He looked up again, unsure, saw the other guy watching him while nibbling at the crusts, and had to ask. "What's with the sandwich?"
The other kid looked down at it and shrugged. "Lunch?"
"In a guitar store? Did you bring it with you?"
"Yeah."
"Why...?"
He shrugged again. "Nothing else to do."
"So...you knew you'd be here long enough to get hungry?" Brandon didn't think it was going to take him hours to decide what he wanted, but then, there was always a shorter selection for southpaws. But this other kid had said he'd had nothing going on, not that he was being meticulous about picking up a new ax. "Did you—what, do you just come here and play all the instruments for hours when you're bored?" Actually, that sounded pretty good.
The other guy snorted and glanced around. "I guess, when I can get away with it. It's fun to kinda get an idea of what I would want if I could pick one."
"That's what I'm doing." Brandon played a chord, testing the tuning, and adjusted one of the keys again. "It was my birthday and my dad still owes me."
"Nice. What do you like to play?"
He looked up again in time to see the other kid dust off his fingers, roll up the sandwich baggie, and stuff it into his pocket. "Like, to listen to?"
"Nah, man, like, when you're making your own shit."
"Oh. Well." Brandon considered the guitar, then decided that since he was trying them out anyway and he had an audience, he might as well pull out what he considered to be some of his best stuff.
He played for a couple of minutes, going for some of his favorite riffs and a few solos he'd written last year, and decided that he liked this guitar pretty well. He stopped and looked around for a pedal to try out some effects, but then looked back over his shoulder sharply as the amp on the other side of the room had a turn: the other kid shredding up and down the frets of a Gibson and then attacking a rhythm riff Brandon liked a lot but had never heard before.
"Yours?" he asked, when the other kid stopped and brushed some hair out of his face.
He grinned. "Yeah."
"Pretty good," he said, mirroring what he'd been told as well.
"Are you rhythm or lead?"
He didn't hesitate. "Lead."
"Good." The other guy seemed to think for a second, then he nodded, glanced at Brandon and raised his eyebrows slightly, then started playing a rhythm riff. Brandon got it immediately and began playing one himself to complement it, then, partly for fun and partly to show off, which was also fun, he started improvising a solo. The other guy changed the riff a little to match, and when they glanced at each other, they both ended it at the same time.
"Fuck yeah," Brandon said at once. "Was that yours too?"
"Sure. You?"
"Yup."
The other kid watched him with slightly narrowed eyes for a second, and Brandon was unsure—did he think he was lying? But then he grinned too. "What else you got?"
Brandon raised his eyebrows a little. "How long you got?"
"I brought a sandwich, man."
Right. Well. "I want to try something else, though," Brandon said, switching the Epiphone off.
"Just for the hell of it? Not considering cost?"
"Well, I do want to pick out something to tell my dad I want, but—"
"I mean, just for playing around, or thinking like, some day." The other guy pointed to one on the far end of the lefty rack. "Try that Gibson Les Paul."
Why not? He unhooked the strap and hung the Epiphone back up, then went to inspect it. It was indeed pretty fucking nice, but then, of course, the price tag wasn't. Some day, right. He almost didn't want to play it, because what if he loved it and then felt like an asshole asking for it? He decided to at least try it out for a few minutes, then he could put it back and look at something else more reasonable.
A few minutes turned into over half an hour, but he barely noticed the time passing as they played and kept going and going. Not only was he playing some of his best shit he'd written, but he was having a fuck of a time improvising here and there with what the other kid was playing. He really hoped he could remember some of this for when he got home and could make a few more recordings.
"MARK!"
Both of them stopped playing and jumped, looking around to the doorway where a store employee, probably the manager, stood. He pointed to a sign Brandon hadn't seen before: TRYOUTS 20-MINUTE LIMIT.
"Sorry, man," the other kid said, switching off the Gibson.
The manager glanced at Brandon, the sour look not as pronounced, possibly because he apparently knew the other kid but didn't know him. "Hi. It's twenty minutes at a time, especially if you're just browsing. Again."
"I was actually thinking about purchasing something," Brandon said. He hadn't switched off the Les Paul and didn't then, either. "I just wanted to be really sure what I wanted." He paused for effect. "I kinda like this one."
The employee then looked hesitant. "Well...turn it down, and you can maybe have another twenty minutes or so. We're also having a special where you can either layaway or put only twenty-five percent down."
"Okay." Brandon stared at him until he shifted from foot to foot and then left, closing the door behind him firmly. "What a dick," he scoffed.
The other guy—Mark—shrugged. "They get complaints when it's too loud in here, I guess there are other people out there wanting to try shit out. Plus I'm in here all the time making noise, so."
"For twenty minutes?"
"If Paul-the-manager is here, yeah." He grinned again. "If Diego and Vanessa are here, they don't care how long I want to fuck around."
"Oh, well, I don't care either—not if I'm thinking of dropping two grand." Of Dad's money, but still.
"That's a hell of a birthday present." Mark lifted the guitar he'd been playing up over his head and held it by the neck.
"It's a hell of a birthday and I'm a hell of a son," Brandon said, then pointed at him. "What are you doing with that? We get twenty more minutes. Which hasn't started yet—it'll start in, like, another twenty minutes."
Mark snorted, hesitated for just a second, then seemed to decide he might as well and put the Gibson back in place. They jammed for at least another forty-five minutes, Brandon wanting to see how long it took before that asshole manager came back in and tried to kick him out for noising around with the merchandise, but eventually Mark slowed and then stopped and switched his off again.
"I gotta get going," he said, and Brandon wondered if he really did or if he just didn't want to cause shit for that manager, especially since apparently more than just the manager knew him. He nodded and watched him take the strap off and pull the cord out and hang it back up, thinking that it sucked that their playing time was over...they'd been just about exactly in sync even when improvising. Mark deposited the pick he'd been using into another dish by the other amp. "You said you just moved here?" he asked then.
Brandon nodded. "About a month ago. So...I don't really know anyone yet."
"I know of a couple of places to play...don't have, like, a band or anything, but it's space. I could text you if you want to jam sometime."
Brandon raised his eyebrows. "That would be great. I've only played with other people a few times; I'm fucking dying to."
"Well...it would probably be just me, at least for now." Mark hooked his thumbs into his jeans pockets and shrugged. "I only know one other guy who even has a guitar, but he doesn't really know how to play it and didn't seem to give a shit when I suggested teaching him. I know a bass player, but he doesn't really care about jamming or writing our own shit, especially if it's just with one other person. Or he'll get a bug up his ass to play every day for a week when I gotta work."
"It shouldn't be hard to find others—there are, like, ads online, or even probably like, a cork board here or at a community hall or something." There were lots in Boston and he hadn't really looked, but he couldn't think Chicago would be any different.
"Yeah, for sure. You want to give me your number? And your name, I guess—I'm Mark Allgeyer."
"Brandon Hayes." He got out his own phone and recited his number while Mark entered it into his phone, then he added Mark's. "I'll be free just about any time," he said. "And I've got a lot of space at my dad's house—I have, like, almost the whole third floor attic room space, and he doesn't care if I play—and I have a Marshall amp with a dual input."
Mark raised his eyebrows. "Nice. Well...yeah, I'll bring my piece of shit First Act and maybe the Marshall will make it sound better."
From reading, he was pretty sure First Acts were pieces of shit, but it wouldn't be very tactful to agree, so he shrugged instead. "Sure—it does great with my Fender." Then he glanced back down at the Les Paul: so expensive. But so nice. It was sleek and fit his hands perfectly and sounded amazing. "This one, though..."
"Some day?" Mark tilted his head toward the red and white Gibson he'd hung back up. "That one's my Some Day. Firebird."
"That one's really nice too. And yeah...maybe some day." Or maybe tomorrow, depending on when he could get his dad alone—or at least away from David—to tell him about what he'd found and played and really liked. Dad would know a good brand and a good name. Maybe he'd look up some reviews and price trends just to be safe. This store would probably negotiate on price, too, since it wasn't a chain.
Mark Allgeyer left with a nod, and Brandon glanced back up at the racks, thinking about whether he wanted to keep playing different ones or call it good for now. In all reality, he knew what he wanted anyway. Sucked being a lefty, though...if he did manage to get anything really good, he wouldn't be able to let hardly anyone else, including that guy he'd met today who apparently only had one of the worst, shittiest guitars ever made, try it out. Maybe if he wanted to take the time to restring upside down and then back, but the strap wouldn't hold right and the dials would be on the wrong side. That other guy—Mark—had played pretty damn well and it was kind of shitty for someone with that much clear talent reduced to whatever the First Act could produce.
The door opened and Brandon glanced over, almost hoping it was that asshole manager from before, but it was just a pair of women who went immediately to the acoustic guitars and began discussing which one Tony would want. Brandon decided he was done and he carefully put the Les Paul back, also making sure to put the cord and strap away, turn off the amp, and deposit the pick in the little dish. He wasn't accosted by the manager on the way out and he didn't go to the counter to ask about what kind of deposit would be needed, instead going right to his car and heading home—he had a little more research to do, a little more planning. Today, he had found the one he'd really wanted.
Timeline: May 2006
Title: That's The One
Summary: Brandon goes to an instrument store to scope out a birthday present and meets Mark.
~3.7k
Due to the entire clan moving from Boston to Chicago, Brandon's sixteenth birthday present had been put on hold. Which he understood, really. He hadn't cared enough to want a party with friends before they'd left, and while a few people had given him gifts, so far there had been nothing from his dad. He'd been great for all of the recent upheaval, too—a model teenager/eldest kid, getting his room packed and unpacked completely by himself and even helping with a bunch of kitchen and kid shit, babysitting almost constantly so that the adults could deal with all of the coordinating for the moves and jobs and whatever. He'd even helped move shit from the moving van into the new house, then had helped David move a bunch of his dad's shit upstairs from where the movers had left it in the living room, and then had spent an entire weekend with the kids, helping reassemble Shawn's crib and to get Shane and Sammie's rooms fixed up. He'd stayed out the way except for when someone was barking orders at him, he'd fed himself and the little kids, he hadn't even been blasting music (yet).
But now it had been a month since they'd moved. Two months since his birthday, and wasn't sixteen supposed to be a special one? Rich girls got huge parties and rich boys got new cars. Well. His dad was rich, where were his goods?
(The Saturn didn't count—his dad had agreed that he needed his license and a car to start driving the kids, and himself, around, and it was used. And it was perfectly fine, so it wasn't even like he wanted a new car, exactly...)
He was trying to be patient; it took time to get shit organized for such a huge move. Three doctors—specialists—needing jobs, Lynn and Gary/David needing houses, whatever legal shit had to go on for the houses to be bought (David had twice, pedantically, attempted to explain what escrow was to Brandon, but he had purposely not paid attention and would probably just look it up at some point on his own), then finding and getting Shane and Sammie and Shawn into the right preschool/daycare, unpacking and setting up everything else in the houses, etc etc. But now...his dad and David had both been back to work for almost three weeks and Lynn had been at her new hospital for two weeks, and Brandon had unpacked and set up everything he could in his dad's house that wasn't bedroom shit. It was approved with some city administration bullshit that he was still going to be homeschooled and he had even glanced through the online syllabus his dad had forwarded him. He couldn't think of anything else major that they still needed to deal with or fix or set up...unless his dad did think the car was his present? He was sure he'd mentioned getting him something after the move, though, and they'd picked up the car the weekend after he'd turned sixteen, which was about three weeks prior to the move.
He probably had actually just forgotten, as he might have been still dealing with new-job shit—just because he'd landed the position didn't mean there wasn't a breaking-in period. His leg didn't seem to be bothering him excessively, and he and David both (okay, and Brandon too) seemed happier now that they all had a lot more room to spread out in, but there could still be a lot on his mind. Brandon had known right away when he'd moved back to the states at eleven that his father was a cranky asshole who mostly kept his biting remarks in his head (if one was lucky) and only spoke to other people when it was necessary, but there had been a time a few years ago when he and his dad were closer, that Gary would talk to him more, even if it was something sarcastic about a dumbass he worked with. Ever since David had moved in, Dad had withdrawn from a lot more, including talks with his oldest son about life and other people and how to handle both.
On the plus side, Brandon didn't really even know what he wanted for his birthday yet, so he was mostly okay with taking more time to think about it and narrow down a few ideas. His dad wouldn't care too much for the specifics—he'd order him pretty much anything he wanted if he sent links—but he knew once he had something, it would be easier for him to remind his dad and ask him for something specific versus what could be seen as spoiled asshole whining for money. (And he even had money. Dad would give him that, too, if he wanted it, and after meeting Kylen and a few of her friends, and with how easy it was to get shit from Germy, he was starting to build back up his clientele. It wasn't money he wanted.) He thought about a new laptop and spent a few days researching them; he also considered a motorbike for quick jaunts around town, but decided against it pretty quickly when he read some stats on theft and accidents. Last year he had gotten a new phone, digital camera, and $500 cash card, so he knew he had a pretty high limit to play with.
On a rainy mid-afternoon on a weekend in May, Brandon woke up and knew immediately what he wanted: he wanted to play. And not just by himself, which was all he'd had since the move, but more importantly, he wanted to play something new. He got out of bed and went right for the long wall in his new attic room, where he'd set up his guitar on a stand next to the amp, and looked at it with his arms folded. Yep. Definitely: what kind of guitarist only had one? The Fender was great, but it was past time to step it up to something else. Maybe he could even get another pedal or some recording software. If he wanted to find some guys here in Chicago to play with, and to step up his playing, he needed some variety. First: online to research, then, less than an hour later, to an instrument store. He was a little excited as he dodged cars weaving in and out of lanes—Boston traffic could be heavy, but people in Illinois drove like assholes—and imagined looking at the guitars on display, taking them down and trying them out a little. Or a lot.
As soon as he went in, he could hear that, apparently, someone else had had the same idea. He looked around and saw that the store sold pretty much everything—it was mostly a wide, open room with a brass section, drums, several keyboards set up, a bunch of other shit he didn't really care about, and what seemed to be a whole separate room for guitars and basses. From behind a closed glass door came a loud riff that Brandon almost thought he recognized but couldn't put his finger on; either way, that was definitely where he wanted to go.
He went in and closed the door behind him, glancing at the guy on the other side of the room playing a Jackson, and looked around for the lefties. There was only one rack—typical—but at least there were some, and he was sure he could have them order in different models if he was willing to put down a deposit. This was just a scouting trip...so he took down a thirteen-hundred dollar Ibanez, which could still be okay but might be kinda pushing it, but goddamn it was beautiful. He glanced around and saw another amp with a cord plugged into the jack on his side of the room and a couple of straps that had been tossed on the floor in the general direction of a shoebox that read 'tryout straps', and decided he sure didn't mind if he did.
He had attached the strap and had just put the guitar on when the other guy stopped playing, the last chord he'd hit resonating for a few seconds until he switched off the Jackson and pulled the cord out, lifting the instrument over his head. Brandon glanced at him out of the corner of his eye while he ran his fingers over the strings on the Ibanez, trying to decide what he should play to put this one through its paces.
The other guy had been gazing over the wall of guitars he was facing, then looked back over his shoulder and turned a little, seeing Brandon standing there with the one he'd taken down and watching him. He lifted his hand a little. "Go ahead—I'm just looking."
"Yeah, me too," Brandon said, bending down for the cord near the other amp. He plugged it in and turned it on, tested its tuning, not liking it and needing to spend a minute or so messing with the keys before selecting a pick from a dish of several and trying out a riff. He grinned a little, liking the feel of this one, and played a little more—a Pumpkins riff, Alice in Chains, two of his own.
Very nice. Pricey, though...not that he couldn't supplement if his dad did think thirteen hundred was a bit much. This was his sixteenth, though, and he had been really good and helpful lately.
Maybe not. There were others. He switched off the Ibanez and removed the cord and strap, hanging it back up and reaching next for a PRS. That time he played only his own shit, and while it sounded good, he didn't quite like this one. Maybe the Epiphones, though he'd seen a lot of mixed reviews for them.
"Pretty good."
He looked up and over at the other guy in the room, whom he'd almost forgotten, and snorted when he saw him nodding sagely and digging in to what looked like a baloney on white. "Your sandwich, or...?"
The other guy, who had somewhat shaggy blonde hair and looked to about his own age, glanced down at it. "Nah. What you were playing. Was it yours?"
Slightly surprised, Brandon nodded as he fitted the strap to the Epiphone. "I did some of mine before I put back that Ibanez, too."
"Yeah? You play a lot?"
Brandon adjusted the tuning on this one too, but just slightly. "I'd like to...just moved here, so." He looked up again, unsure, saw the other guy watching him while nibbling at the crusts, and had to ask. "What's with the sandwich?"
The other kid looked down at it and shrugged. "Lunch?"
"In a guitar store? Did you bring it with you?"
"Yeah."
"Why...?"
He shrugged again. "Nothing else to do."
"So...you knew you'd be here long enough to get hungry?" Brandon didn't think it was going to take him hours to decide what he wanted, but then, there was always a shorter selection for southpaws. But this other kid had said he'd had nothing going on, not that he was being meticulous about picking up a new ax. "Did you—what, do you just come here and play all the instruments for hours when you're bored?" Actually, that sounded pretty good.
The other guy snorted and glanced around. "I guess, when I can get away with it. It's fun to kinda get an idea of what I would want if I could pick one."
"That's what I'm doing." Brandon played a chord, testing the tuning, and adjusted one of the keys again. "It was my birthday and my dad still owes me."
"Nice. What do you like to play?"
He looked up again in time to see the other kid dust off his fingers, roll up the sandwich baggie, and stuff it into his pocket. "Like, to listen to?"
"Nah, man, like, when you're making your own shit."
"Oh. Well." Brandon considered the guitar, then decided that since he was trying them out anyway and he had an audience, he might as well pull out what he considered to be some of his best stuff.
He played for a couple of minutes, going for some of his favorite riffs and a few solos he'd written last year, and decided that he liked this guitar pretty well. He stopped and looked around for a pedal to try out some effects, but then looked back over his shoulder sharply as the amp on the other side of the room had a turn: the other kid shredding up and down the frets of a Gibson and then attacking a rhythm riff Brandon liked a lot but had never heard before.
"Yours?" he asked, when the other kid stopped and brushed some hair out of his face.
He grinned. "Yeah."
"Pretty good," he said, mirroring what he'd been told as well.
"Are you rhythm or lead?"
He didn't hesitate. "Lead."
"Good." The other guy seemed to think for a second, then he nodded, glanced at Brandon and raised his eyebrows slightly, then started playing a rhythm riff. Brandon got it immediately and began playing one himself to complement it, then, partly for fun and partly to show off, which was also fun, he started improvising a solo. The other guy changed the riff a little to match, and when they glanced at each other, they both ended it at the same time.
"Fuck yeah," Brandon said at once. "Was that yours too?"
"Sure. You?"
"Yup."
The other kid watched him with slightly narrowed eyes for a second, and Brandon was unsure—did he think he was lying? But then he grinned too. "What else you got?"
Brandon raised his eyebrows a little. "How long you got?"
"I brought a sandwich, man."
Right. Well. "I want to try something else, though," Brandon said, switching the Epiphone off.
"Just for the hell of it? Not considering cost?"
"Well, I do want to pick out something to tell my dad I want, but—"
"I mean, just for playing around, or thinking like, some day." The other guy pointed to one on the far end of the lefty rack. "Try that Gibson Les Paul."
Why not? He unhooked the strap and hung the Epiphone back up, then went to inspect it. It was indeed pretty fucking nice, but then, of course, the price tag wasn't. Some day, right. He almost didn't want to play it, because what if he loved it and then felt like an asshole asking for it? He decided to at least try it out for a few minutes, then he could put it back and look at something else more reasonable.
A few minutes turned into over half an hour, but he barely noticed the time passing as they played and kept going and going. Not only was he playing some of his best shit he'd written, but he was having a fuck of a time improvising here and there with what the other kid was playing. He really hoped he could remember some of this for when he got home and could make a few more recordings.
"MARK!"
Both of them stopped playing and jumped, looking around to the doorway where a store employee, probably the manager, stood. He pointed to a sign Brandon hadn't seen before: TRYOUTS 20-MINUTE LIMIT.
"Sorry, man," the other kid said, switching off the Gibson.
The manager glanced at Brandon, the sour look not as pronounced, possibly because he apparently knew the other kid but didn't know him. "Hi. It's twenty minutes at a time, especially if you're just browsing. Again."
"I was actually thinking about purchasing something," Brandon said. He hadn't switched off the Les Paul and didn't then, either. "I just wanted to be really sure what I wanted." He paused for effect. "I kinda like this one."
The employee then looked hesitant. "Well...turn it down, and you can maybe have another twenty minutes or so. We're also having a special where you can either layaway or put only twenty-five percent down."
"Okay." Brandon stared at him until he shifted from foot to foot and then left, closing the door behind him firmly. "What a dick," he scoffed.
The other guy—Mark—shrugged. "They get complaints when it's too loud in here, I guess there are other people out there wanting to try shit out. Plus I'm in here all the time making noise, so."
"For twenty minutes?"
"If Paul-the-manager is here, yeah." He grinned again. "If Diego and Vanessa are here, they don't care how long I want to fuck around."
"Oh, well, I don't care either—not if I'm thinking of dropping two grand." Of Dad's money, but still.
"That's a hell of a birthday present." Mark lifted the guitar he'd been playing up over his head and held it by the neck.
"It's a hell of a birthday and I'm a hell of a son," Brandon said, then pointed at him. "What are you doing with that? We get twenty more minutes. Which hasn't started yet—it'll start in, like, another twenty minutes."
Mark snorted, hesitated for just a second, then seemed to decide he might as well and put the Gibson back in place. They jammed for at least another forty-five minutes, Brandon wanting to see how long it took before that asshole manager came back in and tried to kick him out for noising around with the merchandise, but eventually Mark slowed and then stopped and switched his off again.
"I gotta get going," he said, and Brandon wondered if he really did or if he just didn't want to cause shit for that manager, especially since apparently more than just the manager knew him. He nodded and watched him take the strap off and pull the cord out and hang it back up, thinking that it sucked that their playing time was over...they'd been just about exactly in sync even when improvising. Mark deposited the pick he'd been using into another dish by the other amp. "You said you just moved here?" he asked then.
Brandon nodded. "About a month ago. So...I don't really know anyone yet."
"I know of a couple of places to play...don't have, like, a band or anything, but it's space. I could text you if you want to jam sometime."
Brandon raised his eyebrows. "That would be great. I've only played with other people a few times; I'm fucking dying to."
"Well...it would probably be just me, at least for now." Mark hooked his thumbs into his jeans pockets and shrugged. "I only know one other guy who even has a guitar, but he doesn't really know how to play it and didn't seem to give a shit when I suggested teaching him. I know a bass player, but he doesn't really care about jamming or writing our own shit, especially if it's just with one other person. Or he'll get a bug up his ass to play every day for a week when I gotta work."
"It shouldn't be hard to find others—there are, like, ads online, or even probably like, a cork board here or at a community hall or something." There were lots in Boston and he hadn't really looked, but he couldn't think Chicago would be any different.
"Yeah, for sure. You want to give me your number? And your name, I guess—I'm Mark Allgeyer."
"Brandon Hayes." He got out his own phone and recited his number while Mark entered it into his phone, then he added Mark's. "I'll be free just about any time," he said. "And I've got a lot of space at my dad's house—I have, like, almost the whole third floor attic room space, and he doesn't care if I play—and I have a Marshall amp with a dual input."
Mark raised his eyebrows. "Nice. Well...yeah, I'll bring my piece of shit First Act and maybe the Marshall will make it sound better."
From reading, he was pretty sure First Acts were pieces of shit, but it wouldn't be very tactful to agree, so he shrugged instead. "Sure—it does great with my Fender." Then he glanced back down at the Les Paul: so expensive. But so nice. It was sleek and fit his hands perfectly and sounded amazing. "This one, though..."
"Some day?" Mark tilted his head toward the red and white Gibson he'd hung back up. "That one's my Some Day. Firebird."
"That one's really nice too. And yeah...maybe some day." Or maybe tomorrow, depending on when he could get his dad alone—or at least away from David—to tell him about what he'd found and played and really liked. Dad would know a good brand and a good name. Maybe he'd look up some reviews and price trends just to be safe. This store would probably negotiate on price, too, since it wasn't a chain.
Mark Allgeyer left with a nod, and Brandon glanced back up at the racks, thinking about whether he wanted to keep playing different ones or call it good for now. In all reality, he knew what he wanted anyway. Sucked being a lefty, though...if he did manage to get anything really good, he wouldn't be able to let hardly anyone else, including that guy he'd met today who apparently only had one of the worst, shittiest guitars ever made, try it out. Maybe if he wanted to take the time to restring upside down and then back, but the strap wouldn't hold right and the dials would be on the wrong side. That other guy—Mark—had played pretty damn well and it was kind of shitty for someone with that much clear talent reduced to whatever the First Act could produce.
The door opened and Brandon glanced over, almost hoping it was that asshole manager from before, but it was just a pair of women who went immediately to the acoustic guitars and began discussing which one Tony would want. Brandon decided he was done and he carefully put the Les Paul back, also making sure to put the cord and strap away, turn off the amp, and deposit the pick in the little dish. He wasn't accosted by the manager on the way out and he didn't go to the counter to ask about what kind of deposit would be needed, instead going right to his car and heading home—he had a little more research to do, a little more planning. Today, he had found the one he'd really wanted.