Chapter 30

Since it wasn’t quite dinner time, there hadn’t been many customers in the restaurant, but the staff for the evening shift had already clocked in when Aaron had pulled his little stunt.

The combination of the kitchen crew crowding around the back door and a police cruiser pulling around the back of the restaurant and then leaving shortly after with teenagers in the back was enough to bring all of them outside to see what was happening. Service workers are a gossipy bunch and Chef’s shooing everyone back inside and telling them to get back to work wasn’t enough to stop them from chattering about it.

Cameron had good timing, showing up a few minutes after I got back down from taking a shower. I’m not sure what gave it away, but he picked up on the heightened excitement level right away.

“What’s going on?” He asked, seeing me headed to the front porch, guitar case and duffle bag in hand.

“Aaron showed up and tried to cause trouble, ended up leaving in the back of a cop car.”

“He’s going to jail?”

“No. It was decided to not press charges,” I said, still a little bitter. “They’re just taking him home, and having a conversation with his dad. Harry, too.”

“Figures. That guy never gets any consequences.”

“Exactly what I said.”

“Let’s forget him. I’m totally pumped for tonight.”

“Don’t get out much, do you?”

“Not really. My parents may have written me off for worthless as far as farming goes, but that doesn’t mean I get a pass for chores. Most days I have to be up at four-thirty to start dealing with the animals. It makes staying out late listening to live music a little hard.”

“I can imagine.”

“Whatever. You grew up with this, staying up late as a kid, being backstage. You’ve lived the life.”

“It’s not as good of a life as you think it is. No friends, cause we don’t stay anywhere long enough, scraping buy living in an RV. I’ll give you that getting to meet and talk to all the different people was cool, but I think I might have traded it for the life living on a farm.”

“Say that after mucking out stalls every day, and chasing chickens.”

“Gettin’ everyone to play at the same tempo, is kinda like chasin’ chickens,” Willie said, walking up.

“Willie, this is my friend Cameron. Cameron, this is Willie.”

“Nice to meet you, sir,” Cameron said, seeming a little intimidated.

Cameron’s big dream in life was to end up on a stage, performing. The weird thing was that, except for in-school performances and school-sponsored events, he’d never performed for other people. That was probably why he always seemed to talk about the people who did with a sense of awe. I was just glad he didn’t treat me like that. I had enough imposter syndrome without someone I know treating me like I was something special.

“If you’re gonna go with us, it’s just Willie.”

“Ohh, sure. Sorry, Willie. Thanks for letting me tag along.”

“Happy to have you. Now, Charlie here vouched for your good behavior, so don’t go makin’ him look bad, ya hear?”

“Yes, si ... I won’t, Willie.”

“Good. Keenan’s out in the car. We got a little drive ahead of us, so we need to get going.”

The plan was that they’d still drop me off at home after the show. They’d bring Cameron back to his car at the Blue Ridge, since Willie didn’t live that far from the restaurant. I’m sure it’d be a little awkward for Cameron, since he didn’t really know them, but he was outgoing enough, I figured he’d make it work. Besides, I was already pushing my luck far enough with Mom without getting home later than we’d agreed on.

Cameron didn’t wait till he was forced to talk to them after dropping me off to get started. We were only a few miles into the drive when he started throwing questions at Willie. I was a little worried at first that it might start getting on Willie’s nerves. He was really easygoing and laid back, but he also didn’t talk about himself or his past very much. Cameron almost seemed like he was trying to write the man’s biography. Thankfully, Willie took it in stride and didn’t seem that bothered, so I let it be. No reason to make Cameron feel bad if it wasn’t bothering anyone.

Besides, I was learning a lot about Willie thanks to Cameron’s questions. Unlike him, I was usually a little self-conscious about peppering people with too many questions, so the only things I knew about Willie were the things others had told me or offhand comments he’d made.

The biggest was his past playing on the Chitlin Circuit. He’d mentioned it before, but I’d never really known what that was, besides inferring it was some kind of music event that used to exist. It turned out it wasn’t a music event at all. Instead, it was a collection of bars, clubs, and halls along the east coast and down into the south that allowed African-American musicians to play during the era of segregation, when many locations didn’t allow them or would only pay the traveling musicians a fraction of what they paid white performers.

As old as Willie was, he only played the circuit during its last days, in the sixties and early seventies. According to Keenan, who apparently found this whole subject fascinating, its heyday was from the thirties up through the seventies. With the civil rights act eliminating the most blatant forms of discrimination and the increasing popularity of disco, rock, and R&B in the seventies, enough venues opened their doors to African-American performers that the necessity for something like the circuit disappeared. Performers still played at those venues, but it wasn’t its own thing, separate from the rest of the music venues in the country.

If history lessons had been this engaging in school, I might have paid more attention. Although considering they’d still be taught by Coach Bryant, maybe I wouldn’t have. Either way, the trip to Asheville went fast as we listened to Keenan’s explanations and Willie’s stories.

Pulling into the lot, he hadn’t been joking about this not being the same as the previous place I’d played at with him. That had been a really impressive building. Two stories with lots of decoration, an impressive lighted sign out front announcing its performers, and a big parking lot. This place was much smaller, only one story and it was fairly dark outside. We still went in the back, but the owner wasn’t waiting for us like they had at the other place. Willie seemed to be comfortable and knew where he was going, but had I been here on my own, I might have been worried.

Even inside, everything was darker. It wasn’t dirty so much as just dark. The walls were painted a dark color and the lights were fairly low. There didn’t seem to be a kitchen at all and the whole place smelled like stale beer.

“There isn’t a backstage area so you’ll have to sit out in the crowd,” Willie said, stopping to talk to Cameron. “There’s a small door next to the stage, so you’ll go out there and come back through it to meet up with us when we’re done. It’s normally okay, if a bit rowdy, but if things get out of hand, come on back with us. Okay?”

“Sure. Thanks again for bringing me.”

“No problem. Here’s the door. You go on, probably best if you find a spot near the stage, so we can keep an eye on you.”

“Okay.”

Cameron disappeared through the door. Willie’s warnings made me a little nervous, but he seemed oblivious to it, just excited to be here. We kept going down the hall, which suddenly dumped out on stage. The stage itself wasn’t that different than the Blue Ridge. There wasn’t a curtain or anything, the stage just dumped right out on the floor of the bar, and it certainly was a bar. There weren’t very many tables and the ones that were there were small, really only good for setting a pitcher of beer and a couple of glasses.

People milled about by the bar or around the outskirts of the dance floor. There were quite a few people dancing, some good others drunkenly and bad, while music from the jukebox played.

The other big difference was the lack of any house band. It was just Willie and me.

“I thought there’d be other people here?”

“No, the owner’s too cheap to pay for that. I usually play this by myself, guitar and my voice. It’ll be nice having someone else up here to play.”

Luckily, lessons with Willie had more or less devolved into us just playing together, so we were used to that. I’d seen Dad play a few gigs like this when I was younger, so it wasn’t completely alien, but I’d grown used to playing with a full band.

“You’ll do fine. It’s easier to play just us, since you don’t have to watch anyone else’s tempos, so just do what we do. No reason to get nervous,” Willie said, obviously catching the change in my mood.

There wasn’t any announcement or talking to the crowd like there had been at the other place. We set up our stuff, checked the mics, and plugged up to the amps that were already set up on the stage. Some people seemed to notice something was going on, but most of them were more interested in their beer than anything else.

That was where this place really diverged from playing at the Blue Ridge. There, music nights were the feature of the whole place. By the time we started, most of the people there had come specifically to listen to live music and enjoyed a drink or three while they did it. Here, drinking seemed the main focus and we were, if anything, an afterthought.

I looked down the wall towards the door Cameron had gone through and saw him at a small table off to the side, near the door. I kind of wish I’d asked Willie more questions before asking Cameron if he’d wanted to come with us. At the time, I thought it would be similar to the first place we played and it seemed like a nice gesture. This place was way sketchier. Cameron didn’t seem to mind, but this wasn’t exactly the peace offering I’d intended it to be.

Willie made his final checks of the setlist with me, and it was all familiar to me. He’d made sure to pick songs we’d played together, so I wasn’t worried about that. He did tell me I wasn’t going to do anything on my own or play my own music tonight. This wasn’t really that type of crowd and I hadn’t performed my music solo on stage before, and he didn’t feel like this was the right place to try something like that out.

We started without preamble, just going into the first song. The crowd barely seemed to notice, except for the people on the dance floor, since the owner had shut down the jukebox while we played. Most of them rolled with the change okay, continuing to dance while we played, although a few people walked off seemingly annoyed.

Just like every time I got up and played, the nervousness washed away once we got going. After a few songs, it actually felt comfortable, since it was just Willie and me. It felt more like we were back on the side porch of the Blue Ridge, just messing around with the music, instead of at a paying gig.

The crowd also started to get into it as we got going. More people went out on the dance floor and the tables nearest the stage started filling up, although they were still much more focused on drinking than the music. One of the things Willie’s lessons and my playing at the Blue Ridge had taught me was the importance of playing off the audience, and I’d grown used to it enough that its lack was starting to throw me off.

I decided to focus on the music instead, treating it almost like when just Willie and I played together. After a few more songs, I started playing off his more steady rhythm, like I did in practice, starting slowly to see if Willie seemed annoyed that I was going off-book. I’d split a half note into eighth or sixteenth, holding the same note but syncopating the rhythm. Willie responded by doing the same thing back at me a few bars later, which told me it was game on.

The next time there was a good spot, I split apart a whole note, but took the separate notes up a partial scale on the same key and back to the whole note, making sure the selected notes weren’t dissonant with what Willie was playing. We began to pass this back and forth, trading small changes to the music. When Willie had first started to introduce this kind of riffing, I’d been a little intimidated, worried about holding to the song that I was supposed to be playing. I knew it was a thing that was done, since there’d been major covers of already popular songs that did just this. I just found it challenging to not let the riffing get in the way of what I was actually trying to play.

Willie pointed out that, if done successfully, it was a great way to add some variety to a show. Because any performance needed to be practiced, touring musicians tended to hold to a setlist with very little change, maybe alternating out one or two songs at most from night to night. This could get very boring for the musicians by the twentieth night of a tour, and bored musicians made boring music. Audiences could hear when the band wasn’t into a song, which is why sometimes the beginning of a tour would get rave reviews and later legs would be found wanting.

I disappeared into the music, almost forgetting anyone was watching us play. I’m sure that wouldn’t be true if the audience was more engaged, but with this quiet of a crowd, it was easy. We did one song after another, going back and forth, just playing with the music. Willie was a friendly guy, but he was usually fairly subdued, even with playing. He enjoyed it just as much as I did, but he was more serious about it. The big smile on his face told me he was having as much fun as I was.

I was so engrossed; I didn’t notice anything was off right away. Willie noticed it first, falling off the beat slightly and looking towards the crowd. Some kind of argument was happening at the bar. I’d assume people were yelling, but between the amplifiers right next to us and the overall din of the bar, it was hard to tell.

“Just ignore it. This kind of thing happens in places like this. Normally the bartender gets it under control after a few.”

Sure enough, the bartender leaned across and started talking to the two men, finger-pointing at one of them. I thought for a second it was going to work, until one of the guys punched the bartender square in the face. That seemed to uncork whatever had been pent up to that point, and all-out mayhem started. The guy who punched the bartender was tackled by the guy he’d been arguing with, smashing into other people near the bar, who then retaliated.

I’d never seen a bar fight outside of TV, which hadn’t prepared me for how quickly things escalated, expanding out from the two people who’d started the fight. Some people moved away, managing to get out the front door or just flattening themselves against the wall to avoid getting involved, but a lot of the crowd threw themselves into the fight willingly. The one thing no one seemed to be was confused, suggesting this was the kind of thing that often happened here.

“Just start packing up. We’re about done anyways and we’d be way over by the time the cops get finished,” Willie said. “Don’t worry, they almost never come up on stage.”

The ‘almost never’ wasn’t as comforting as he probably meant it, but I started packing up all the same. Willie had mentioned this was a different kind of place than the last one we played out, but it hadn’t occurred to me that it was dangerous. It probably hadn’t occurred to Willie either, since he didn’t seem worried, but I knew I’d have problems when Mom found out about it.