Chapter 14

Friday

Chuck

Oh, my goodness, I felt so good, so warm, surrounded by so many ladies. When I opened my eyes, I was face to face with Lisa, who was staring at me. I was alarmed at first, as I thought she might be dead with her eyes open, but the smile that came to her face told me there was no problem. She kissed me gently and said, "Good morning, Lover. Do you remember what I told you last night?"

I smiled in return, "The same as I feel toward you this morning. Yes, Lisa, I love you too. How can I love all of you the way I do?"

A voice from behind me said softly, "Because we are all meant for each other. I thought I could never love a man, and then you came along. I love you, Chuck, and I love you even more for giving me these babies I'm carrying."

I rolled onto my back and Frieda lay partially on top of me. "You are special, Frieda. You appealed to me as soon as we met. You never did strike me as being a woman only girl. Your eyes were so inviting, and the way you licked your lips as you looked at me, made me think you were a real sex kitten."

"I'm a sex kitty all right, but in my case a real pussy lovin' kitty. Something about you told me to open up to you and enjoy you. That first night so long ago, after we went to the concert and dancing at the Hard Rock, I knew you and I had something special. The night I spent with you at your apartment just reinforced it. I couldn't believe it when Brandy and Tiani kept saying you would want to be with all of us, but here you are, right in the middle of all of us and more."

"Girls," I said, "I have to get going. I'm taking a guy from the park down to the station this morning. We have to work something out about his truck."

A tiny body had crawled up and was laying on me, "I want to work something out with you too. Would you turn back over so I can get at the object of my interest?"

"Oh no, Tiani, you'll have to take a rain check. I've got to get going. Hold that thought, I promise to get back to you."

The seven of us did manage to slide from bed and get going. I did my stuff in the bathroom, stepped into the shower, and was followed by Frieda and Nancy. Nancy said, "You need your shower slaves to help you get clean. I have this special massager that will help get this long, fat, thing clean."

Frieda said, "And my massager knows how to clean out the inside where all that nasty stuff builds up and makes you uncomfortable. Come on, Nancy, let's get this guy clean."

I was thoroughly washed, followed by Nancy demonstrating how her special massager fit all around me and massaged me clean. Frieda showed me how her massager encompassed me tightly, squeezing the juices right out of me. When I blasted off into her, she clung to me in orgasm. With half closed eyes, she looked up at me and kissed me gently. In stereo, the two girls said, "I love you."

It was already seven, so I needed to hit the road to pick up Mark and get down to the station garage. I left the girls with kisses and told Lisa I would be back later to practice, and that she should pick out several pieces for us to play.

Mark was ready when I arrived at the patio, so we had a quick cup of coffee then drove downtown. We met Hank at the garage and showed Mark the Escalade. I would have thought he would at least smile at such a beautiful car, but he actually grimaced. He looked it over carefully, but you could tell it wasn't anything that made him happy.

Hank went into his spiel about knowing someone who would trade Mark out of it real quick. He said he understood that Mark would be giving up his old bike for something he wasn't crazy over, but Mark did know that he was getting a good deal in the fancy SUV.

Hank then showed Mark the newer Harley that had been confiscated. You could see Mark's mood change. He was suddenly asking, "So you really think this person would actually trade me something I want for the Escalade?" While Mark was looking at the bike he said, "I'll take the deal."

Hank began loading the Harley onto his big tow truck while Mark and I went across the street to get the paperwork taken care of. Less than a half-hour later, Mark was driving the Escalade, following Hank in the tow truck on the way home with his toys.

I spent a few minutes in the office returning calls and e-mails then told Wanda I would be gone the rest of the day. She just nodded and asked, "Will I see you out at Steve's tonight?"

"That's why I'm taking off. They asked Lisa and me to play for them tonight, so we need to practice. I'll see you out there."

On the way home, I picked up a couple of Subways so we wouldn't have to take time out for lunch later. As soon as I entered the house, I could hear Lisa was in a zone today. Our music would be good.

Lisa was in the media room, playing some soulful riffs on her ES335. When I picked up my electric, Lisa said, "All the axes are tuned and ready. Play with me a few minutes. Let's make them sing."

We did play with no special progression, just both of us letting our guitars wail in a slow, crying pace, that had the hair on my arms standing and my scalp tingling. Sometimes blues has no special place to go but to just wail, cry, and sing.

I broke it down for Lisa to get a beat and began the da dum ta da, da dum ta da, rythym of a basic blues beat. Lisa grinned and took it from there. I reached over to one of the boxes set up and flipped it on to sample a complete set of my back beat from the guitar. When the sixteen bars were complete, I hit the "save" button and picked up my bass and hit the sample play, with the doubler sound on sound, to save the next sixteen to go with what I had played. This time, I let the bass pick the same back beat, but I let it bleed and sing a little. At the end of the sixteen bars, I hit "save" again, hit the dual play, and picked my guitar back up.

Now we had the back beat from a guitar and a singing bass to accompany us. Lisa and I were able to let it just wail. Still no place to go, no special music, but some really wailing riffs. At the end of thirty-two bars, I stopped and punched the sampler off.

Lisa pouted when she looked up, but smiled and said, "Now that is what you needed to get you started. Let's listen to it. I have the board on record."

Lisa punched a few keys and we first heard her playing, then me joining in, followed by my sampling, then doubling, then both of us playing with the sampled back beat. Lisa smiled again, "You know we could sell shit like that. If we were to set up a studio, we could record some keyboard and you could back it up with the Roland drum pads. I could do some harmonica to go with some of our singing, and first thing you know, we got some blues, Baby."

"Let's think about doing something like that so we can play it for folks like they want us to tonight. If we had more recorded, we could just accompany our recordings and sing with it. That would be the way to entertain."

With some keystrokes, Lisa said, "Okay, ready. What do you want to play first? We'll set up all the background, exclude our guitars, and when we play out there, we'll just play the midi and accompany it with our stuff and some singing. I'll play my harmonica a little while you really go off on that Les Paul."

"Neat idea, let's do a half dozen good blues pieces and another half dozen or so jazz tunes. If we want, we could do some real metal to let them cringe, then settle them back down with a nice ballad. Let's set the pace by using the keyboard and you doing rhythm guitar first. We'll sample it back, then add bass and drum. That will let us have it ready to accompany us on our guitars and sing if it's part of the piece. What do you think, can we get that done?"

Lisa was grinning, "Sure, if we only set up about a dozen tunes. Let's get it going. Here, let's do this one first."

This was work, as at first I played the keyboard while Lisa used an acoustic for rhythm guitar as backing. Next, we sampled it out back to the midi with bass, then added drums with Lisa playing lead guitar, but not recording the guitar. When I did the bass and drums, it gave me a chance to practice singing the pieces. By four o'clock, we had six good blues pieces and six decent jazz tunes, plus a really hard metal tune and two ballads ready. They were very professional, but not perfect by any means. We began loading up the car with our amps, guitars, midi, sampler, and our trick or gig bags. We were lucky to have some decent microphones with stands and booms, along with a couple of professional stage monitor speakers. My car was packed, but that wasn't a problem.

After a quick shower and getting dressed, Lisa and I drove out to the trailer park where we found the patio filling up with people. It was only five fifteen, and there were probably over a hundred people already milling around.

As soon as Lisa and I walked in, our Fab Five, along with Lena and her sister, Tina, swarmed us. Thinking that I had not seen the sisters all day, I asked, "Where have you two been all day? I didn't see either of you at home."

With a smile, Lena said, "We went out to the school all morning, spent this afternoon at the pool here, and the rest of the time we were right here on the patio with Sue, Mercy, Kathy, and Juanita. We've had a great time."

Steve came over to me and said, "This has turned out to be a bigger deal than I would have ever expected. Do you think you could get the keyboard out here and just sort of entertain a little to keep the natives calmed? We have a bunch of crazy people tonight, and they're all drinking a lot."

"I guess I could, but Lisa and I have a regular show prepared for you guys, whenever you want it. I think it's great and hope all your people like it. We put it together today just for tonight. We can play some now, but I want our real show to be something special for you later."

Steve grinned, "That's really neat that you two would do that for us. I'm sure we'll love it, but right now I just thought some piano and perhaps a little guitar accompaniment would settle down the natives."

Lisa smiled, "Music to soothe the savage beast?"

"Something like that," Steve said.

"Lisa," I said, "Let's get all the stuff hauled in, and you can set everything up while I play the keyboard. I'll do a lounge act for a while, and when you're done setting up, you can do some acoustic with me."

We hauled our stuff into the patio and set up where Bonita had done her show. I put the keyboard on the patio, connected it to one of our amp/speaker combinations, and began playing some standards. Bonita had watched our activity and ran into the house to return with one of the fake books we had purchased on our trip to Alaska and Hawaii.

I told Bonita, "How about getting your acoustic guitar and playing rhythm with me?"

Bonita grinned real big and ran inside the house and returned with her guitar over her shoulder. She dragged up a chair, sat next to me, and began playing chords right along with the piece I was playing.

We had been playing for about fifteen minutes when the mellow tones of a bass guitar backed us both up. I turned to see Lisa grinning at me while playing the bass. Lisa said, "You have your rhythm guitar, I thought some bass would fill it out."

While we played, Steve made sure we had drinks to sip on and kept complimenting us for entertaining everyone. Lisa had stopped and was erecting a mike on a boom in front of me, and I heard the snap when she flipped it on. Lisa leaned down and said, "And now for your listening pleasure, Chuck's gonna sing for us."

I said into the mike, "Actually, Bonita and I are going to sing for you. Stand up here so we can use the mike together, Bonita."

Pointing at the open page of the fake book, I began the intro and in a perfect two part harmony, we began "Ain't she sweet." I think the patio almost became perfectly still except for the sounds coming from the big guitar amp and speaker. We sounded that good. I was amazed at how perfectly the little girl could sing. On the second chorus, another voice joined us, as Lisa began singing right along with Bonita. Damn, we are good.

We did about five songs together until Tiny came up and said, "I have some announcements, then we're going to eat. Go have something to drink and take a break."

Bonita ran off, taking her guitar back to where she kept it. Lisa and I went to the bar and each got a stiff drink. We both had some scotch over ice and were sipping it, listening to Tiny, Phil, and Steve.

Tiny began talking about how great it was to have the racing teams visit us. He gave all of them thanks for making our race day teams a success. He then said "Now for the S&S employees. You guys are just so good that you don't ever know how recognized you are for your perfect work. We have been invited to open a plant in Hamburg, Germany. The Association of German manufacturing is offering us space to begin manufacturing one or more of our products. What do you think, are we going to out perfect the perfectionists?"

There was all kinds of hollering and clapping.

"Now for the best part, you all know how the economy has been really brutal this past year. Well, do you know we have not laid off one person?

We have even kept the construction guys that wanted to work on projects. So every time you hear or read about another thousand people being unemployed, it ain't any of our people."

More hollering and clapping.

"Phil has a few words for you."

Phil took the mike, "You won't believe this, but I'll be quick. Star still has a regular schedule for me to do a seminar every other month, but Judy is still in demand to give a monthly seminar. Our video packages have been a hot item all these years, but it is because we represent all of your production that we are still successful. Thank you."

Phil turned around and handed the mike to Steve.

Steve said, "As you know, we have people going to Hawaii to set up an airport and flight school. Some other folks will also be going to help them get the office set up over there. Hawaii will become the destination for a lot of you people who win vacations for producing beyond expectations."

"A lot of you know that I have this itch to build an airplane. We've built an engine and have cast some parts, but we didn't have the expertise to build a real airplane. Wes Miller came to work with us and to ramrod the new S&S LSA manufacturing company. LSA, meaning Light Sport Aircraft. Wes says he will have our parts put together and in the air in less than a month, so watch out for falling objects."

A lot of laughter.

"This may not be a giant new company, but it will become the test bed for many new products, the new aircraft engine, special structural engineering, and most of all, some special composite material that will have a variety of uses in other products."

"What I'm trying to get across is that S&S is not laying off or downsizing, we are growing. We are expanding while others have their heads in the sand. It's harder for our sales people to find the sale, but they're working harder and working smarter. The inside people are paving the way for the field people. Our reputation is keeping orders flowing our way. Congratulations, and thank you."

Noise generated by the hollering and clapping was numbing.

Steve held his hand up to quiet the crowd. "The food is ready, so dig in. I want everyone to know that drivers are ready to get you and your vehicle home, so even if you have had only a few, get help tonight. I need you here Monday, and in some cases tomorrow, so be careful. After we eat a while, our favorite musicians, Chuck and Lisa have a show for us. While we eat, Tiny has some of their Atlanta DVDs to play on the central video feed. Eat hearty and enjoy."

Lisa and I got a beer and found our group was mixed in with Steve's women. Lena, Big Tina, and Kathy's oldest daughter, Barb, were surrounded by some of the other local teens, being asked questions about college. Little Tina came up to Lisa and me, and after hugs and kisses said, "You two never cease to amaze all of us. You two just make music fun."

We sat with our group and devoured some great ribs. The potato salad was really good, along with some corn on the cob. There were some wings that would melt the paint off most cars, but they sure were good. Lisa and I were trying to keep from stuffing, and let me tell you, it was difficult.

The tables were being cleaned up and the party was continuing inside and outside the patio. Tiny asked me to show him where the outputs on our amps were so he could feed into his PA system outside and in the big tent. When that was complete, he said, "I'll turn the DVDs off and you can put on your show. I think I'll encourage the party to slow down when you're done playing. We have a lot of drinkers tonight. These teams are really letting it out."

I got Lisa's attention so we could take a potty break before getting ready to play. As we came back from the restrooms, Kathy stopped me, "Thank you for letting Bonita play with you. She's so excited that you let her play "professionally" as she calls it. You've really found talent out here."

With a smile, I said, "She needs to play with us now also, as this next stuff we're going to do will be fun for her. She'll like it and it will be nice to have some more rhythm guitar."

Lisa had heard what I told Kathy and said, "You heard the kid singing, right? She is really good. I can't believe a six year old can read music like that and sing too. Get her for us, unless it's too late for her."

Kathy went to find Bonita. As Lisa and I were turning on the equipment, Bonita showed up with her guitar. I told her, "Bonita, just play rhythm chords with us. I'll tell you what key we'll be in and you can just strum along. We don't have music with us as we practiced earlier. If you don't feel comfortable, then don't play, but stay with us for when you can play."

The little one had no fear as she went to work making sure her guitar was still in tune. Lisa and I did the same and Lisa brought out her harmonica to use on a couple of pieces.

When we were ready, I snapped on the mike which made a loud pop on our speakers and the PA system outside. All heads turned toward us. I said into the mike, "When Steve asked us to play a little, we were going to just do a couple of pieces on our acoustic guitars and perhaps sing a little, but Lisa and I decided to create some multi-instrument music for you. This is almost like Karaoke, but we have to add instruments and voices sometimes. We had fun making this, hope you enjoy it with us."

We started out with 'Mack the Knife' and jazzed it up pretty good. Bonita was able to pick up the rhythm real well and stayed in key. We did 'Soul Man' with the midi keyboard doing what should have been brass, and it sounded really good. I hit the doubler on my voice, so it sounded like two people singing the chorus, while Lisa played the harmonica.

We went from one piece to the next with hardly any break at all. We did the heavy metal piece "Every Dollar" that Tim Rogers does so well to break up the other blues we were doing, so it was a continuous show right down to "Georgia" and we ended with "Summertime," because Lisa said I had to do it.

When we were done, the applause and hollering from the patio and outside the patio was deafening. Little Bonita gave me a hug, then Lisa a hug and kiss. She said it was fun. That reflected how Lisa and I felt, as it had been fun, and I know we sounded really good.

Everyone kept asking for more, but I announced, "We didn't plan on any encores and without our back up instruments, it wouldn't sound that good. Put the Atlanta DVDs back on or put those European CDs on. When we have some extra instruments, we sound pretty good.

Steve came out with something in his hand, held it up, then took a mike and said, "I have something that these two have not heard yet. This is from Chuck's birthday party in Hawaii. When we were getting the party together, Lisa asked me to see if we could set up some recording equipment to get it on tape. I not only have it recorded, I have it on video. I just got the edited DVD a week or so ago, and haven't even seen the finished product yet. I'll put it on now."

Son of a gun, it was that night, not that long ago, when Lisa surprised me in Hawaii with all the guys from Atlanta. The video was really good considering the lighting sucked. The people who edited the video and music did a good job, as when we began playing, the group sounded really professional. We could be on stage anywhere.