Chapter 38

I got back on base Saturday evening; Sunday afternoon JB flew back in and I picked him up at the airport. Nothing new in Nashville; everyone there missed me, and Angie is leaning toward JB and me being in Blues for the wedding. Back to work Sunday night; flight operations were going to pick back up and we got the shop ready. That happened pretty quickly, and within a couple days we quickly settled down into a regular routine. JB and I decided to head to Beaufort Friday night after he got off work, to see when the restaurant wanted us to start performing again.

Friday morning I got up, and worked on the Buick. I changed the oil, gave it a good cleaning inside and out, and went through the trunk and cleared out some of the junk that had accumulated. Reorganized it too; along with the rest of the car, the trunk was huge; I could probably live out of it if I had to. Nice to be back; the afternoon got into the 70’s, and I even waxed the oversized beast. JB commented on how good the Buick looked when I picked him up to head to Beaufort; and asked if I’d ever thought about getting something newer, and maybe smaller?

“It’s my first car; easy to maintain, comfortable to drive, in outstanding condition; I may end up being buried in the damn thing,” I joked.

“The grave diggers would not be happy,” he laughed.

The restaurant was a little different. It had been thoroughly cleaned and the public parts painted, some of the English décor removed, the booths and chairs had been re-upholstered; it wasn’t a shiny new penny, but it looked pretty good. Mildred was there and we talked to her a bit; it turned out she was easing out of running the place; and her son James and his wife Donna were the new bosses. James came out from the kitchen and asked us to come back Saturday early afternoon, so we could talk more about what was going on. And he would like us to resume playing the next weekend; the 17^th. Sounded like it could be a serious talk, and I didn’t want to surprise him with my being transferred to Japan late in the spring; so I told him about that.

He sat back and obviously thought about it a little. “We are thinking about making some major changes around here. We’ll talk about it more tomorrow, but we’re hoping you guys will be involved.”

“You need to keep in mind that the Corps is our priority,” I said. “We like playing here and are having a lot of fun doing it, but the Corps comes first. I’ll probably be gone for more than a year and might not come back, though most likely I will. And JB will probably be sent sometime in the next couple of years; just something to keep in mind.”

“We’ll figure it out tomorrow,” was all he said; though he did call a waitress over and told her to feed us; it was on the house. He had to smile when the first words out of her mouth were that we had been missed, and asked when we’d be performing again? A couple smiling handshakes later and James excused himself to get back to work; we settled back in our chairs.

Supper was excellent; many of the customers and waitresses stopped by to at least say hello. JB and I talked through the meal and all the way home, trying to figure out what to do. I think JB thought that our gig would just stop when I left; he really, really did not want to do it alone. We were still talking when I dropped him off at his barracks, though we arranged to meet at the gym at 10. Maybe we could get a basketball game going.

Saturday morning I did my PT first; and got the rest of the kinks out of my back from being in the car all day, the previous weekend. JB and I met up at the gym and managed to play ball for most of a couple hours; I may be over-doing the exercise part, just a little. We cleaned up and skipped the chow hall, we’d get something at the beach somewhere; maybe James would feed us again. We’d arranged to be there after 1; we drove around town and the beach, not much going on. When we got to the restaurant and got inside; James took us to a back table where we found Donna, Mildred and even her husband Charles there, waiting for us. Sodas and snacks soon appeared as we got seated; we’re being treated very well, for some reason.

Short story; yes, James and Donna are taking over; and they are planning to expand. Mildred was retiring, along with a couple of the older waitresses. The store next door was coming available; they are thinking of buying it and moving the restaurant part of the business over there. They’d possibly open up the wall between the two; and were thinking of finishing the rear outdoor area between the revised new bar and the old stables, maybe putting in a pavilion and some picnic tables. Maybe opening up a real space for dancing; something they were seriously lacking. They’ve got big plans, and had wanted us to keep playing and performing at least into the summer. They had bands and performers lined for most of the season, but had been keeping our regular weekends open; they had not considered us not being there. The two weekends a month we performed, ended up providing almost a quarter of their total revenue for those months. They wanted to keep that up, and make us a regular thing; be the house band, so to speak.

We talked; mostly JB because he was going to be the one here. JB was reluctantly willing to continue, but only with someone else; and we had no candidates, we hadn’t even considered it. Maybe we could find another musician, maybe not.

James asked if a new guy would be as good as I was; I told him JB was the musician, I was just an amateur. I was just up there having some fun, entertaining myself, mostly. He said that wasn’t what he was talking about. What the hell?

JB smiled and took over the conversation; “That’s what’s going to be hard to do. We’ve got to find someone with the stage presence Carl has.”

Again; what the hell? JB let me know we’d talk about it soon; and we soon wrapped up the conversation with the owners. We didn’t have any answers; and had just been made aware my leaving and us quitting would be a problem. We did agree to perform while I was here, but the first of April was probably going to be the end of it. James motioned a waitress over and gave us lunch on the house; she smiled broadly and took our order, then asked when we were coming back, they missed us. James had to laugh; we’d been asked the same question the night before. We ended our meeting when the food arrived; Charles hadn’t said much, just welcomed us back and wished me well. ‘Don’t volunteer for anything’ he told me with a smile as he left; something I’d heard before.

JB started talking while we were still eating. “I know you don’t realize just how important you are to what we’ve been doing,” he started. “Yes, the people come to listen to the music; but they also come to be entertained by the jokes and stories you tell, the banter between us and them. You interact with an audience like nobody else I’ve seen, and it’s pretty special.”

“I’m not doing anything special; I’m just talking and filling in the blanks.”

“That’s part of what makes our performing special; and you special when you’re up on stage. You’ve gotten very good playing guitar, and your voice is now damn good too; you could be a professional, if you wanted. I’ve watched you pretty closely and can do what you do a little, but it doesn’t come naturally to me. I’m hoping we can find someone to do that while you’re gone; at least enough to ‘fill in the blanks’, as you said. I’d like to keep doing this for a long time; even after Angie and I marry, and she moves here.”

I had to think about what he said. Granted, I hadn’t seen any of the other bands at the clubs do what we did; but so what? All I knew was that people seemed to like it, and we all seemed to be having fun. And I wanted to keep doing our thing, whenever we were together.

Anyway; the priority was finding a new male musician, JB was pretty sure Angie wouldn’t put up with a woman joining up with JB, especially when she wasn’t here. The obvious place to look was the club during open-mike nights, maybe advertise in the base newspaper. The base band was a little bit of a possibility; but it was mostly a marching band, we needed more than horns or a drummer. JB would handle that part; and if he found a potential match, we would check him out.

We just goofed around at the beach the rest of the day, again in the low 70s with just the chance of a sprinkle. We did go out to the point and checked out Fort Macon; a pre-civil war stone and brick structure with several old muzzle-loaded cannons on display. It was not a ruin, restored and maintained by the state; pretty cool and made me glad I wasn’t a Marine in the 1800’s.

Sunday, we got together and eventually went to New Bern and saw the new movie, Godfather II. We went to the early afternoon showing, then we headed back to base and I got ready and went to work.

The week went well; JB went to the open mike session at the club Wednesday evening; he told me it didn’t look good and he was going to see about submitting an ad in the base newspaper. My work was interesting for the most part; I read, and wrote several letters while waiting for computer to finish up testing the black boxes.

Friday evening we headed to the restaurant to perform for the first time in 1975. It had gotten cool again and the place wasn’t packed; Mildred and James were watching from the bar, along with Donna. I smiled and waved to the customers and announced ‘we’re back’ in a sing-song way, making ‘back’ into two syllables; and we started with one of their Beatles favorites. A lot of nodding heads and foot tapping, we’re doing okay. In between songs I asked if everyone had a good Christmas, and if they’d broken any new year’s resolutions yet, to a bunch of smiles, nodding heads, and laughter. I made JB stand up, then announced he and Angie were officially engaged, he’d gotten down on his knees and asked and given her a ring and everything! She seemed happy about it, I added, I just wasn’t sure she knew what she was getting into. More laughter; we’re on a roll and everyone’s having a good time.

The whole night went well, many people stuck around until 10:30 or so; we wrapped it up around then, saying we’d be back the next night. James and Donna were pleased, and planned on a bigger crowd on Saturday; they asked if we had any ideas of what to do; JB said he was checking if there was any talent on base that could at least temporarily replace me.

Saturday night went just as well; a little larger crowd with several tables of younger adults, and a couple tables of young women. I asked; they were mostly college students and were just looking for entertainment; I double-checked and yes, they were having a good time. I told them, and everyone else; the pad of paper on the stage was for song requests, or at least the names of their favorite artist. If we didn’t know the song or artist, we’d figure it out and try playing something the next time; at the end of the month.

For the rest of the month, work was work; for both JB and me. Flight operations were back in full swing; at one of my squadron formations we told some big changes were coming for our group and squadron the coming summer and fall. No details, just a ‘stand-by to stand-by’ warning; be a boy scout and be prepared. It would be nice if they gave us a hint of what was coming; but not my concern, I’d be gone. It was interesting that JB didn’t hear anything, or get the warning; if that was what it was.

February JB got assigned squadron duty like I had; and it figured, on a Friday we were supposed to be performing. That turned out to be Valentine’s Day; he wasn’t able to swap with someone, or get out of it. We’re worrying about JB maybe having to play solo; and I’m the guy to have to do it. I thought about canceling; but figured I could pull it off without many problems. JB had taught me guitar pretty well; and I could play almost everything with just 4 chords, and a little bit of picking. If I stuck to C major; all I needed was the C, F, G, and A minor chords; and maybe a few individual notes on a famous introduction. What could go wrong? We let the restaurant know that I’d be playing solo on Valentine’s Day, and I’d be mostly doing slow and moderately slow love songs; and then JB worked the hell out of me.

We worked at lunch time; and he came to my shop and we worked on it there, when I wasn’t fixing something; the guys in the shop were very entertained. We put together about 50 songs I could do reasonably well; JB told me to tell lots of stories and jokes between songs. Friday, he stopped by my barracks to wish me luck before he went on duty and I left; I think he was more worried about it than I was. I got to the restaurant and set up early two stools and two mics, my guitar and the two small amps. I made it look like JB was going to be there; then sat at the bar for a while. All couples tonight; seated four to a table and dressed a little bit better than normal; Donna kept asking if I knew what I was doing. I reassured her without telling her I was just winging it; at least I was smiling.

At 7, I got up on stage and took my place, picked up my guitar, and looked at the empty stool; then said, “Welllll, damn!” That got the expected laughter, then I added; “I seem to be missing somebody.” More laughter, and a little applause; maybe I can get away with this. I explained that JB had duty and was back on base, saving the world; but I wasn’t needed for that, and I was their entertainment for the night. More laughter; I said, “Let’s see what I got,” and I immediately went into Bob Dylan’s “If Not for You.” Immediate applause when I finished that one; I can do this.

I won’t go into all the songs I did, but the night was a huge success. I did several Beatles songs, James Taylor’s ‘Something in the Way She Moves’, Jim Croce’s “I’ll Have to Tell You I Love You in a Song’; then ‘Stand by Me’, ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow’, ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’, ‘Over You’; you get the idea. At the end of my first set I apologized for not being able to take any requests; but if anyone wanted to sing with me, or sing something to someone special, there was an open mike...

The second and third sets went much the same; I didn’t circulate that much that night, just made sure everyone was enjoying themselves. At the end I told everyone that JB would be back the next night; and to please tell him I’d done okay, though he probably wouldn’t believe it. Afterwards a couple of the waitresses gave me a hug, Donna came out from behind the bar and gave me one too. I got more than a couple appreciative comments from my audience when they were leaving; I seem to have pulled it off.

JB knocked on my door early the next morning after getting off duty and asked how it had gone; I said I’ve sung almost all the songs we’d worked on, and I thought it had gone well. He took off to get some sleep; we arranged to meet at the chow hall for supper, and I’d tell him all about it then. Pretty slow day, I worked on a couple songs I thought I could have done better; when JB came and got me for supper, he took my guitar from me and said not to re-hash my performance, just look forward to the next one. Then we reviewed what I could remember anyway, during supper and after.

We got to the restaurant in JB’s van that night, and everyone confirmed to JB that I had done good. The bigger surprise was that the place was just as packed, and there were more than a couple tables of women that I was sure had been there the night before, then with dates. And; when we took the stage, there were lots of requests for some of the songs I done had the night before. We did a couple and then JB dedicated one to ‘his fiancé, Angie’; something he hadn’t done before. When that one was done, he asked with a grin if I wanted to dedicate a song to someone; I replied with a ‘no, no, no; this is a close as I want to get to true love.’ I got a few laughs; JB laughed and mumbled something about me being in trouble.

At the first break, I figured out what he meant. We circulated and JB was told again several times how well I had done the night before; the problem was the tables of ladies. I couldn’t just say a couple words and move to the next; almost all of them wanted to talk to me, for ‘just a moment’. They loved what I had done; didn’t I have someone to dedicate a song to, where was I from, what did I do besides sing? I tried to answer vaguely, but several of them wanted details. We when we got back to the stage JB laughed and whispered that he had thought about warning me about this; but I had still needed to sing love songs by all by myself; on Valentine’s Day, no less.

The rest of the night went the same; it wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t prepared for the ladies to be so..., interested? We played a little later than normal, it was a Saturday night, after all; then getting all the customers out of the building took a bit. Even Donna was laughing about it, and finally shooed everyone out and locked the door while the waitresses were counting their tips, and JB and I still sitting there.