Chapter 9: A Dish Served Cold

Coos Bay, Oregon

January 22, 1999

Fridays in Blake Studio were supposed to be open days where Jake and the band V-tach could work on either of the CDs, depending on where that time could be best spent. As it happened, every Friday so far had been dedicated to Jake’s material, as he was considerably further behind and more disorganized than V-tach at this point in the process.

This particular Friday, however, both CDs dipped a little further behind. This was because they were only able to work for four hours before Jake, Laura, Sharon, and Bill needed to head to the airport so they could fly to Cypress in time to make their 3:45 PM appointment to evaluate the progress of the Cypress High School orchestra’s work on Jake’s song Any Given Sunday. Mary Kingsley had been working with them for two full weeks now and reported they were coming along quite well in spite of the fact that Jake was not actually there to work with them. Now it was time to see what they had, plug Jake in with them to reinforce what they were doing, and let the Nerdlys and their critical ears evaluate the potential of the project. And, since there was no way in hell that the Nerdlys would allow a single note to be recorded in the absence of themselves, the bandmembers and techs were all given an early start to their respective weekends.

Laura had cut out of the studio at 10:30 to go pick up Caydee and Kelvin, who would be making the trip with them. She was not really needed at the studio anyway—although she was developing her own production skills quite nicely thanks to her keen ear for musical notes and keys—because they were still working exclusively on the rhythm sections of Jake’s tunes. She was back with the children and their luggage by 11:10. At that point, the session was brought to an end. V-tach climbed into the Suburban with plans to go visit a popular seafood restaurant. Natalie then drove everyone else to North Bend Municipal in the KVA van.

“Now come on, Nerdly,” Jake told Bill as they loaded everything into the plane, “you can’t start hating on these kids without even having heard them.”

“I am not hating on anyone,” Nerdly said firmly. “In fact, I appreciate what your mother and her kids are doing for us. It’s just that I think for the final recordings themselves it would be better if we procured professional musicians.”

“Where are we going to get a professional orchestra to record a single song for us?” asked Laura, who was letting Caydee sit on the wing of the Avanti (one of her favorite things to do) but was keeping a restraining hand on her at all times.

“Mary and Cindy still have close ties to the Heritage Philharmonic,” suggested Sharon, who was standing next to Kelvin, who was looking up at his honorary cousin with visible envy that she got to sit on the wing but his mother would not even entertain the thought of putting him up there with her. “Maybe we could enlist their help in the project.”

“At what point?” Jake asked. “They would have to learn the tune from scratch and then rehearse it all up just like the kids are doing. And they’re getting ready for their spring concert series. There’s no way they would have time for something like this.”

“Well ... maybe,” Sharon had to agree.

“Look,” Jake said. “Let’s just give them a listen and go from there. I’m bringing you two down here so you can evaluate the feasibility of this thing. I want your input, but you have to keep your minds open and not reject the idea out of hand without even hearing how they’re coming along.”

“I will keep my mind open,” Nerdly promised. “I’m just a bit dubious about the ability of this group of young amateurs to produce recording quality sound when the primary melody instrument and the vocalist are not working with them as they go.”

“Yeah,” Jake said, “I’m a bit dubious about that as well. But let’s keep those minds open, okay?”

The Nerdlys agreed to keep their minds open.

The Avanti’s tanks had enough fuel to make it to Cypress, but Jake had the FBO pump in another six hundred pounds anyway. Fuel was cheaper here than it was in Cypress (God bless Nerdly teaching him how to use the internet to check such things) and this boost would get him there and back without having to pay for any at that end.

Once fueled, everyone climbed inside and settled in. Laura and Caydee strapped into the seats behind the cockpit. Sharon and Kelvin strapped into the back row of forward-facing seats. Nerdly strapped into the copilot’s seat. Jake made sure that no one outside was near the aircraft and then fired up the turboprop engines. After his preflight check, he activated his flight plan and taxied to the head of Runway 22, aiming the nose of the plane roughly into the onshore twelve knot wind. He throttled up and twenty seconds later, they were in the air and climbing.

It was cloudy in southern Oregon but clear and beautiful (though a little cold) in northern California. As such, Jake made a VFR landing at Cypress Municipal instead of an ILS landing at Heritage Municipal, which would have been necessary had there been cloud cover. The runway at Cypress was only thirty-seven hundred feet, which meant that Jake had to use the reverse thrust upon touchdown in order to keep from overrunning the runway. It was always a little exciting to have to do that. Other than that, however, it was a routine flight. Laura and Caydee had slept the entire trip while Kelvin and Sharon discussed the subject of complex sound equalization and how it related to the greater human experience.

Tom and Mary met them at the airport. Caydee’s face lit up like a neon sign when she saw them standing in front of the office.

“Gaa-maw!” she cried. “Gaa-paw!” She made Jake put her down so she could toddle over to them, arms held out in front of her. She went to Grandma first (Grandma was the one who handed out snacks when she visited) and was picked up and kissed and hugged repeatedly before being passed over to Grampa for more of the same.

Since it was only 1:45 and they had a few hours to kill, they had lunch at the Red Baron café which was located on the airport grounds. After everyone perused the menu and ordered, Jake discussed the status of the project with his mother.

“I think you’re going to be quite pleased with our progress,” Mary told him. “And the kids are looking forward to playing with you today.”

“I’m looking forward to it as well,” he said.

Caydee then demonstrated her newly acquired skill with the harmonica that Jake had gotten her for Christmas. It was by far her favorite possession and she had taken to it with an uncanny energy and understanding. Though she still only had a spoken vocabulary of around twenty words and/or phrases (“fuck it” and “shitshow” quite prominent among them), which her pediatrician had told them was actually quite advanced for an almost 14-month-old, she could reproduce dozens of musical notes and several complete measures on her harmonica.

“Caydee moo-zik?” she asked Laura as they waited for their food to arrive.

“Well...” Laura said, looking around. “The place is almost empty. Maybe you can give us a quick little show, baby girl.”

“Yayyy!” Caydee said, clapping her hands. “Moo-zik harm-ika!”

“Wait until you see this,” Jake told the grandparents as Laura dug in her purse to find the ‘harm-ika’. “This is wild.”

Laura found the tiny instrument and handed it over. Caydee, a big smile on her face, took it and immediately put it to her lips in the correct orientation, cupping it with her right hand, centering her middle finger over the number 6 hole to use as a reference point. She then began to blow. Tom and Mary both instantly recognized the tune. It was Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, played with an obvious and consistent time signature of 4/4—the disco beat.

“That is incredible,” Mary said, quite impressed.

“Indeed,” said Tom. “You’re playing music, Caydee! Beautiful music!”

“Caydee ting!” Caydee said, using her word for ‘sing’. And then she did just that. She took the harmonica away from her lips and laid down her version of the lyrics, still sticking to that four on the floor beat.

“Tink-co, tink-co doo-doo war, ow my udder doo-doo war,” she sang, her voice quite pretty and pleasant to listen to, even if her words were not. She repeated this phrase several times and then put the harmonica back to her mouth and played out another few bars of the melody.

“That is so precious!” Mary declared.

“It’s her own interpretation of the meaning of the tune,” Jake said with a smile. “Here, listen to this one.” He turned to his daughter. “Give us the Alphabet Song, Caydee-girl.”

“Affa-bet!” she said enthusiastically. She then began to blow on the harmonica again. It was the same tune as Twinkle Twinkle, though she did not seem to realize this. She played it out a few times and then sang. “Ay-see dee-see bee eff dee, eee see bee see pee pee fee.”

“Her voice is so pretty,” Tom said, amazed at his granddaughter’s talent.

“Yeah, we’re still working on the lyrics a bit,” Jake said.

“I can play the piano,” Kelvin suddenly interjected, his voice not bragging, but just stating a fact.

“Can you now?” asked Mary.

“Indeed, he can,” Nerdly said, his tone mirroring that of his son. “He is familiar with the basic scales of the piano and can play Für Elise, Bach’s Prelude in C Major, and Elton John’s Crocodile Rock, among a few other pieces.”

“That’s wonderful!” Mary beamed. “I can’t wait to hear you play, Kelvin.”

“Maybe you and Caydee will be in a band together someday,” Tom suggested.

“It is likely,” Kelvin said with a matter-of-fact nod. “We are both precocious musical prodigies, and Mom and Dad say that Caydee and I are going to be married someday since she is not really my cousin.”

Jake and Laura both raised their brows a bit. This was the first time they had heard about this particular plan. “Is that so?” Jake asked.

“It seems logical to me,” Kelvin said. “Although I am not currently attracted to girls, I understand that after puberty I likely will be. Caydee will still be too young at that point, but eventually she too will transcend puberty and our ages will coordinate in a societally acceptable manner.”

“You think so, huh?” Jake asked, casting his eyes over at Nerdly. Though Kelvin was eerily smart (he could already do high-school algebra and was starting to dabble in geometry) and had an impressive (almost frightening) vocabulary, the phrases ‘transcend puberty’ and ‘coordinate in a societally acceptable manner’ was certainly not something he had come up with on his own.

The Nerdlys at least had the decency to look embarrassed. “We mentioned the possibility once or twice to him,” Sharon said, blushing furiously.

“We did not mean to give the impression that it was an inevitable event,” said Nerdly.

Caydee, meanwhile, moved onto her next number. It was Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin, which was pretty easy to play on the harmonica. She blew out the melody and then gave her version of the opening lyrics. “You need Kool-Aid, Caydee-girl’s not pooping!”

This was as far as she had gone in her mastery of the piece so far, so she simply sang it over three times and then went back to playing the melody on the harmonica.

“Do they have any Kool-Aid here?” asked Kelvin after hearing her sing.

“No,” Sharon told him. “They do not.”

“What a rip,” Kelvin said, shaking his head sadly.

Soon, Caydee finished her concert and moved into rehearsal mode, just playing notes in different combinations to see how they sounded. Most of the combos did not sound all that appealing, but every once in a while she did stumble across something that worked. Jake smiled and nodded his head every time he heard such a thing.

Still a considerable distance away from the Terrible Twos (which Jake knew, from watching Tabby and Kelvin go through it, really was a thing and he really did dread its arrival), Caydee did not argue when Laura told her it was time to stop playing so they could eat. She simply gave a brief “Awww” and then surrendered the instrument. Their plates were set before them and they ate lunch. The cuisine was not spectacular, but it was palatable.

Jake had rented a Landcruiser and had it delivered to the airport. At 3:00, Tom climbed back into his vehicle with Caydee and Kelvin and headed back to the Kingsley-Archer compound up on the edge of the canyon so he and Caydee could hang out for a bit while Kelvin visited his own grandparents. Jake, his mother, his wife, and the Nerdlys then piled into the Landcruiser and made the short drive to the high school. He parked in the faculty lot and then grabbed his cased guitar out of the back of the vehicle. They made the hike onto the campus.

The final bell had just rung when they arrived at the auditorium. Jake was surprised to see a large crowd gathered in front of the building, mostly students, but with a fair smattering of teachers and other staff as well. As soon as they approached the entrance, they were mobbed. Cameras began to flash. Hundreds of questions were shouted out. People rushed up to shake Jake’s hand. It was just like being mobbed by paparazzi during one of his scandals, but not as well organized.

“It would seem that my students let a few people know you were going to be here today,” Mary said sourly.

“It would seem so,” Jake agreed.

He and Laura posed for a few pictures (Jake insisted that Mary be in them as well) but Mary refused to allow him to sign any autographs.

“Jake is here to work with the orchestra,” she said firmly. “And we need to start setting up.”

A collective “Awww” sounded through the crowd as Mary led him in through the side door of the auditorium. It was peaceful and quiet inside, but smelled strongly of teenage sweat as the final PE class of the day had just been playing basketball in there twenty minutes before.

“Sorry about that, Jake,” Mary apologized. “I asked the kids to keep it quiet that you were going to be here.”

Jake shrugged it off. “No big deal,” he told her. “That happens to us a lot.”

Mary opened the curtains that covered the stage area and turned on the lights. The stage was empty currently. Jake asked if they could start setting up the chairs and music stands but Mary would not allow it.

“The kids will do that,” she said. “Setting up and tearing down each session is part of their commitment. It helps build team cohesion and discipline.”

Jake smiled at her.

“What?” she asked.

“Do you tell them the same thing you used to tell me to get me to clean my room?” he asked.

“What are you referring to?” she asked.

“You had a variety of expressions,” Jake said, “but my favorite was ‘clean that room up or I’m going to take everything out to the street and set it on fire.’”

“I never said anything of the sort,” Mary said righteously.

Jake chuckled. “Ahh, the selective memory of a mother,” he said. “I bet you don’t remember beating my ass with those orange Hot Wheels track sections when I pissed you off either.”

“No, I do not remember doing that,” she said huffily. “If I did, you must have pissed me off quite badly.”

“Are you kidding?” Jake asked. “The Hot Wheel tracks were your go-to. And there was always one laying around in arm’s reach too.”

“If I actually did that, I was out of line,” Mary said.

“No, not really,” Jake said. “I’m pretty sure I deserved it every time you tore me up with one of those things. Kept me on the straight and narrow. Reasonably anyway.”

“The Good Book does advocate corporal punishment of children as a disciplinary measure,” Nerdly added.

“Can we talk about something else?” Mary asked, blushing.

“Sure,” Jake said. “I’ll just make sure my guitar is in tune. But just to set the record straight, the most effective threat you ever used to get me to clean my room was the simplest one. If you just told me to go clean it or you would do it yourself, I was in that room and cleaning like yesterday.”

Mary looked at him in surprise. “You know, now that you mention it, that was the most effective. Why was that?”

“I would think that would be obvious,” Jake said with a laugh. “If you had gone in to clean yourself you would have found my pot stash and my cigarettes and my porno mags. That simply would not do.”

“Oh ... I suppose that makes sense,” Mary said with an embarrassed nod.

The kids started to arrive five minutes later, just as Jake was putting the finishing touches on the tuning of his guitar. Once they were all present, Mary introduced them to Laura, Sharon, and Bill and explained to them that they would be evaluating their progress today as Jake actually played the tunes with them. She then directed them to set up for the session. Moving with near-military precision, the kids quickly accessed one of the storage rooms and began pulling things out and carrying them to the stage. Inside of five minutes, they had seats and music stands for everyone, a conductor’s podium set up for Mary, and the six-piece drum set assembled on the rear of the stage. Everyone then sat down, took out their respective instruments, and began to go through the ritual of tuning.

While they did this, Jake took a seat near the front of the group, between the Oboe player and the guitarist. He rested his instrument on his legs and then looked at the guitar player. He was a skinny kid with a fair smattering of pimples on his face. His hair was short on the sides and spiked upwards on the top. He wore blue jeans and a Metallica sweater. He seemed quite awed that Jake was sitting next to him.

“What was your name again?” Jake asked him.

“Uh ... James, sir. James Quarter, though most people call me Jimmy.”

“Like Jimmy Page,” Jake said.

“Who?” Jimmy asked.

“Are you kidding me?” Jake asked. “You don’t know who Jimmy Page is?”

“Uh ... no, sir.”

Jake sighed. “Man, I’m getting old,” he said. “Anyway, you’re the one that has been playing the guitar parts in the piece?”

“Yes, sir,” Jimmy said.

“You don’t have to call me sir,” Jake told him. “Just call me Jake. Are you having any problems chording out the melody?”

“It’s a little bit complex,” Jimmy said, “but I think I’ve got the hang of it. It doesn’t sound as good as when you play it, of course.”

“I would hope not,” Jake said with a chuckle. “You’d put me out of a job.”

Jimmy laughed nervously. “I’m having more trouble chording out Insignificance,” he said. “That one is very technical and complex.”

“Yeah,” Jake agreed, “it does take some practice, that one.” And he was not kidding. Even though it was a piece of his own composition, he remembered how long it had taken him to plug back into it and recommit the melody to muscle memory when he had started rehearsing up the set for the TSF. And even now, when he had played it out over the last week in anticipation of this very session, he had been quite rusty at it.

“Any help you could give me, I’d really appreciate it, sir ... uh ... I mean, Jake. I know I’m not really going to be playing the part in the performance or in the studio, but I do set the melody for everyone else while we’re rehearsing and I’d like to sound my very best.”

Jake smiled and patted him on the back. “Let me hear how you do and I’ll help in any way I can,” he promised.

This made a big smile appear on Jimmy’s face. “Thanks, Jake,” he told him.

They got started. Mary took to the podium and led the kids through a series of warmup exercises to get them into the feel of playing and to limber up the body parts they would be using. She conducted them with her baton, setting the timing for them and directing when they should go higher or lower on their volume or intensity. After about five minutes of this, she brought them to a halt.

“Okay, everyone,” she said. “Let’s go to page one of Any Given Sunday and show Jake what we got.”

“Should I play the guitar parts here, or is Mr. Kingsley going to do it?” asked Jimmy.

“You play for now, Jimmy,” Mary told him. “Let’s dial it in like we’ve been rehearsing and then Jake can jump in with his part after that.”

“Okay,” Jimmy said slowly, obviously more than a little intimidated.

Mary established that everyone was ready and then began to wave her baton, initiating a four-count. After the fourth wave, they started in, the strings section leading the way with the secondary melody and then Jimmy kicked in with the guitar chords of the primary melody. Jake was immediately impressed. They did not sound like a high school band fumbling their way through a piece they had been forced to work on, but like dedicated musicians who had been rehearsing and practicing their performance. Jake smiled as he heard them run through it, his hands itching to put his own guitar chords in, his voice itching to start singing out the lyrics.

They stumbled a little on the switchover from second chorus to bridge and Mary brought them to a halt. “Sorry,” she told Jake apologetically. “That particular transition gets us a lot.”

“That’s okay,” Jake said. “That sounded incredible! You’ve managed to work it up to this level in only ... what ... seven sessions?”

“Eight including today,” Mary said. “We will get better with more practice.”

“Wow,” Laura said. She was also impressed. “I am quite amazed with the progress you’ve made.”

“Thank you!” Mary said brightly.

Everyone then looked over at the Nerdlys, who were sitting in chairs at the base of the stage next to Laura. They had no expressions on their faces.

“Well, Bill?” Jake asked. “What do you think so far?”

“The sound of their efforts so far has transcended what my expectations were prepared for,” he said.

Everyone looked at each other and then back at Nerdly.

“That’s good, right?” Mary said carefully.

“Indeed,” Bill said with a nod. “I withdraw my objections to the use of this orchestra for the recording. They will only get better as they rehearse more, and when they do, they will undoubtedly produce acceptable music for the master.”

“Indeed,” said Sharon with a nod. “Although we will certainly need to supervise the sound check and work on volume output quite extensively at some point.”

The kids all looked at each other again, and then at Mary. This was understandable. They had no experience dealing with the Nerdlys.

“It means they like what you’re doing,” Mary told them. “And they think the project will work.”

“Really?” asked the Oboe player.

“That is pretty much what we said,” Nerdly told her. “Should we run through it a few more times?”

“Let’s do that,” Mary agreed.

They ran through it again, this time making it through the bridge section and into the final verse and chorus. After the last chorus, Mary brought them to a halt. “We haven’t really worked on the outro much,” she told Jake.

“That’s okay,” Jake said. “I just have it written as a fade-out of the main melody right now.”

“Maybe we can work it into a classical orchestral outro,” suggested Laura.

“A classical orchestral outro?” asked Jake. “What do you mean by that?”

“Have the kids play out a more intense version of the melody while your guitar drops into the background,” she said. “And then they can conclude with a finale that is just them. No guitar, no bass, no drum. Just the orchestra playing as if they were performing on their own.”

Jake pondered this for a moment, trying to envision what she was suggesting. While he was pondering, Mary spoke up. “Uh ... how long would this outro be?” she asked. “Remember, we only get two hours, three times a week to work on all this. And we still have all of our other pieces to rehearse as well.”

“Not very long,” Laura said. “Maybe twenty or thirty seconds after the end of the final chorus.”

“I do kind of like the idea,” Jake said slowly, and not just because his wife had suggested it. It really was a good idea.

“As do I,” said Nerdly. “Mary, can you compose such an outro?”

“Compose it?” she asked, taken aback. “Me?”

“You composed all the violin solos on both Jake and Celia’s first two CDs,” he reminded her. “You have the ability to do so.”

“Well ... yes,” she said, “but those were violin solos and I’m a violinist. You’re talking about composing an entire piece of orchestral music.”

“Not an entire piece,” Jake said, “just an extended motif. That’s not that much. It won’t even be as long as your violin solo in Insignificance, really. Come on, Mom. You can do this.”

“Yeah, Mrs. K!” said one of the violinists. “You can do it!” Most of the other kids shared some version of this sentiment.

“Okay,” she said, visibly exasperated, but also quite intrigued at the thought of being an actual composer. “I’ll do it. I’ll give it a try anyway.”

“Hell to the yeah, Mom,” Jake told her.

“Please don’t use that phrase, Jake,” she said.

“Sorry,” he said. “Sometimes it just slips out, particularly when I’ve been working with Ted.”

“I understand,” she said. “Now, how about we get back to work?”

They got back to work. They ran through Sunday one more time, again playing pretty much flawlessly until they reached the end of the final chorus. Jake watched Jimmy the guitarist this time around, nodding in approval at the way he played the chords. He was no Jake Kingsley or Matt Tisdale, of course, but he was competent. His fingers found the notes with little effort and without his eyes having to look down to see where to fret. That was the mark of a true guitar player as opposed to a hacker. And the kid did not miss a single note.

“Good strumming, Jimmy,” Jake told him with sincerity after they stopped playing. “You’re doing me proud.”

“Thanks, Jake,” Jimmy said, beaming with the praise.

“How long have you been playing?” Jake asked him.

“Since I was about ten or so,” Jimmy said. “I started off with the piano lessons that my parents made me take when I was eight, but I never liked the piano as much as the guitar.”

“Do you play electric as well?” Jake asked.

Jimmy nodded. “I have one of your signature Les Pauls from Gibson,” he told him. “My dad got it for me for my fourteenth birthday.”

Jake was familiar with the guitar. It was a cheap version of the Les Pauls he played in the studio and onstage, designed and mass produced to be inexpensive so that people like Jimmy (or Jimmy’s dad) would be able to afford one. As of his last endorsement contract with Gibson, Jake received eleven dollars for each one of the $110 guitars that were sold.

“Bring it in one of these sessions I’m here,” Jake told him. “I’ll put my real signature on it for you instead of the stamped one it comes with.”

“Really?” Jimmy said, excited at the thought—and not just because that would quintuple the value of the instrument. “Cool!”

“All right,” Mary said, using her teacher voice, “let’s do it again. Only this time, you play the guitar parts, Jake.”

“Okay,” Jake said. “I hope I can keep up.”

Everyone had a little laugh at that.

“Should I sing as well?” he asked his mother.

“Not just yet,” Mary said. “Let’s plug you into the piece instrumentally first, and then I’ll have you sing.”

“You’re the boss,” Jake told her, positioning his guitar and pulling a pick out of the inlay.

They began to play. It took them three tries to get past the first verse, not because of anything the kids did, but because of Jake. He was not used to playing with an orchestra, not used to being conducted by a woman with a baton, and, as a result, he kept screwing up his timing, or losing his place in the piece because he was trying to figure out what his mother was indicating with this wave or that point.

“It might be better, Jake,” his mother finally said, “if you didn’t look at me while you play. I’ll conduct the orchestra, you set the timing with your melody.”

“How will you be able to follow along?” Jake asked.

“Because I’m good at this,” she told him. “Now, eyes off me if you please.”

“What should I look at?” he asked.

“Anything you want,” she told him, “as long as it’s not me.”

“Right,” he said. He decided to look at his wife. She was wearing a cute sweater that molded to her small breasts quite alluringly. As he was pondering the shape and feel of those breasts (and hoping she would be up for a little action after retiring for the night), the orchestra began to play around him. He did not begin to play with them and Mary called another halt.

“Okay,” his mother said with a sigh, “new plan. You look at me until the cue to start playing is given. Once you start playing, you look away.”

“Right,” Jake said softly, acutely embarrassed that he looked like a hacker in front of all these high school musicians.

The new plan did the trick, however. Mary gave her four count with the baton and Jake started playing at the same moment as everyone else. He then put his eyes back on Laura’s chest. His hands continued to fret the instrument at the proper rate and the lyrics played in his head in perfect time. Mary, as promised, kept up with him and directed the kids to play at the same beat. They managed to make it all the way through this time, although Jake continued playing for a few seconds after everyone else stopped because he had not seen the halt signal.