Chapter 8: Stalker

Accessorie$. The $ pluralizing accessory is intentional, not a typo, because that’s where the real cost is. Accessories generally mean enhancements, and fall basically into two groups. Convenience and $tyling. That $ on styling is also intentional, because that’s where the real cost is. I’m repeating myself. It deserves repeating to myself, as a caution.

Lash invites me to go drum shopping one morning. Sore footed after an early morning three holes of golf, I am more inclined to just sit and rest my dogs. Distance between the two doglegs, a left and a right, and a straight fairway shot, covered the entire course. I think I must of toted Faye’s full golf bag about seven miles total between the nonconsecutive holes. I only own and use four clubs. Faye’s bag holds mine and her complete set of fourteen clubs. Weighs a ton. Her idea of torture endurance training.

Lash is a hard man to deny. He can be a real pest until he gets his way. Won’t take a no. Reluctantly, I drag myself out to go with him and Kezia. We drive to Uncle Nikko’s music shop crammed in the front of Lash’s welding truck. Lash doesn’t have a regular employer. He free lances out of his pickup truck, with his welding machine and gas bottles racked in the bed. Lash has a welding job to get to. He’ll return after the project is completed. A couple of hours at most, he estimates.

I’m introduced to Uncle Nikko and left to his and Kezia’s tender mercies. Kezia leads me on a spelunking expedition beneath Uncle Nikko’s music shop. In the basement, is an orphanage and a catacomb for antique oddball drum kits and accessories. Gathering dust and turning into dust.

Antique is a misnomer, and implies valuable heirlooms. Vintage drums is a more appropriate label. Like with vintage wines, not all vintages are good ones and some have soured with age. Uncle Nikko’s basement smells sour and looks packed, haphazardly.

Kezia is more enthused than I am. She continuously calls me over to some remote corner or a narrow alley between ranked stacks of drums. She believes treasure is buried underneath every huge pile of drums and I only need to move them to uncover the gem she is certain is hidden beneath. She’s right!

After moving around hundreds of drums, we find a tattered, mildewed, ratty, peeling leather covered case atv the bottom of one pile. The leather handle looks like swiss cheese, its so decayed.

Inside the case is a classic jewel indeed. A 1910 Ludwig brass snare drum with bronze rims. It has tube lugs and rim clips for the six tensioning rods. Also in the case, is a nickel plated snare stand and a nickel plated cymbal stand. And under the fourteen inch diameter snare, is a “Constantinople” hand hammered fourteen inch vintage cymbal. The drum needs heads and oil on the threaded parts. Both of these are famous beauties, renowned for their voices.

How much? Kezia runs to find Uncle Nikko. I carefully tote the case upstairs to the store. He wants a hundred bucks. Neither of us wants the case. I pay, and Nikko provides a plastic bag for the cased drum.

I’m not sure if Nikko knows there’s a cymbal underneath the snare. He never touched anything in or on the case, only peered in, afraid to touch it. I was reluctant too! It looks diseased. He isn’t being cheated. Fifty bucks each is a fair price for the two old instruments, even if they are classics. The old stands have no value and I’ll replace them with modern stands. The case is a bio-hazard to be discarded and disposed of soon as possible before it’s germs spread.

Back to the hunt, this time with greater enthusiasm. At the bottom of the ancient wooden steps descending into the basement, a grinning Kezia waits. As soon as I’m down on level ground she leaps on me. Wraps her springy arms around my neck and her long taut legs around my waist, leaning away, rared back to study my face. Naturally, my arms circle under her butt to support her weight. Which is considerable. I there’s any fat on her, I don’t know where. Her body is petite, but all bone and sinew. Even her ass cheeks resting on my forearms, are firm muscled. She has a gymnast’s body.

“Did I please you? Are you happy? Are you going to reward me?”

“Yes! You certainly deserve a reward for all your valuable help. What reward would suit you?”

“Make me your girlfriend!” Said with a smile and a wistful voice but I can tell this is important to her. Kezia isn’t flirting. The look in her eyes is so intense, it could burn holes in me. She wants a serious relationship. She has a crush on me, I recognize the symptoms. Sure, she’s only twelve. I’ve had young girlfriends before, younger. As young as ten. I’m fifteen. Three years older than Kezia. No big deal. My dad is eleven years older than my mom. She was nineteen and he thirty when they married. Kezia and I aren’t getting married. Yet!

“Okay, abracadabra SPROING! You’re a girlfriend. Happy now?”

She kissed me as an answer. Kissed me real good and long.

“Wow, you are a very good kisser. Can I have another?”

Repeated, with even more passion than the first.

“Want to find a secret spot to hide in and fool around?” Kezia suggests. Whoa!

“Kezia? Tell you what. I know where there’s some great spots to be romantic in, and this musty storage isn’t one of them. Want to go skinny dipping with me later?”

“D’ya mean, actually get naked together?”

“Wear a swimsuit, if you bring one with you, or swim in your underwear, if you’re shy about nudity and don’t have a suit. I’m jumping in the water wearing only my birthday suit.”

“Okay, it’s a date.”

“Or first date.”

“Our second. This is our first date. A treasure hunt for drums.”

“Agreed. Let’s hunt some more drums.”

“Won’t you first stick your hand in my pants and feel me up some?”

“My hands are dirty, and this dungeon is filthy, and it would break my heart, if you caught something that made your cute body look disgusting like that old drum case.”

Kezia shivered with revulsion, let me go, and slithered down me to stand on her own two feet again. Grabbing my hand, she pulled me towards the rear of the basement.

“We haven’t explored back here at all yet!”

No, we haven’t looked back here, and I’m looking hard. At some gaily striped latin drums. One very sturdy stand supports a pair, a tall conga and matching it’s colors and height, a slightly fatter tumba. These are hand drums, but who says you can’t play them with sticks? There are buckets full of used sticks down here. Helping myself, I select a matched pair, rubber banded together, and separating them, employ them in my experiment on the conga set. Interesting tones. Kezia employs her hands to beat them. The tones are distinctly different, with hands or sticks. We drag them out in the open area. Gheck them over for cracks, rot, or damage. Plenty of scratches on the lacquered finish. Lacquer is just a type of paint. Painted objects can be repainted. If these are affordable, I want them. What else is in this grouping of latin instruments?