Chapter 10: Suffer Some

Initials got further praise from Ms. Rawlings during the showing in class the next day. Amid a collection of generic school shots, my set was quite different.

“Matt, would you like to explain your difficulties with this one?” she asked, holding up the courtyard photo.

I stumbled my way through a description of the process she’d shown me, getting confused several times with the negative-to-negative aspect of the exposure. When I finished, Ms. Rawlings gave the method a name.

“That’s called burning the film. There is a very similar thing called dodging. We will be looking at these later in the year. But this was a good use of the technique. When mastered, it can be an art form, as important as the construction of the subject itself. Thank you, Matt.”

There was one other project that also got extra attention. It was a collection of time-lapse – or almost time-lapse – photos of the school day, starting and ending with the parking lot, with classroom and cafeteria scenes in between. The active shots captured the bustle of of kids, busses, and food trays.

“Shannon, please tell us how you came up with these excellent pictures.”

As the blonde girl started talking, I remembered that she’d been the only student to hold her hand up at the beginning of the year when Ms. Rawlings had polled the class about film developing experience.

“Well, you said no filters, so I couldn’t really do a time-lapse. So instead, I took lots of shots of the same scene, really quick, and left the shutter open as much as I dared, like maybe half a second for the inside ones. Then, I overlapped the exposures from different negatives when I printed them.”

Shannon then laughed. “It was a way bigger pain than I thought. I had to trace the stuff that wasn’t moving onto a piece of paper, and then line up each negative as I went, but I had to cover the print each time, and make sure I had the alignment paper in the same place each time, and, well, it took forever! Then I exposed for a little time through each negative, and, yeah. That’s what I did.”

I wasn’t the only one who had spent hours on the project, I suddenly realized. Maybe I hadn’t used the most film, either. Her photos were extremely cool.

As soon as photography class finished, I met my band mates at the auditorium. A throng of people was already gathering. While the guys went to grab our equipment that we’d stored in the music room for the day, I approached the registration table, where a trio of senior girls sat. It was slightly intimidating.

“Here you go,” one of them said, handing me some sheets of paper and smiling happily. “We need three copies.”

I abruptly realized that we’d never decided on a band name. Unable to take the time to find the guys and decide on something, I put down the first thing that came to mind.

“You guys are one of the bands, right? Set up behind the curtain, on the left side,” another girl said to me.

I nodded, disappointed to hear the words ‘one of the bands’. So we had direct competition. I found my friends on the edge of the stage.

“People are allowed to watch?” Bruno asked, eyeing the kids in the auditorium that were already slinging legs over the seatbacks in front of them.

“Either that, or we’re up against a ton of other acts,” Carl said. “Whatever. It’s just like a show,” he added, trying to sound confident.

“Yeah. And we’ve never played a show. We’ve never played in front of anyone except a few people at Matt’s during practice,” Bruno muttered, decidedly less sure about this than he’d been a couple of weeks earlier.

“Come on, let’s set up. We might have to go first.”

Lara bounded up to us as we headed for the side of the stage.

“Hey, good luck, guys!”

“Thanks,” Pete replied.

Bruno and Carl practically ignored her, probably from nerves. Lara gave Pete a little hug.

“Good luck, Matt!” she added, giving me a smile.

I tried to return the happy look, but apparently Bruno’s nervousness was contagious. Lara jumped off the stage to sit with her friends.

“What’s the difference between this and the real talent show, if everyone can watch?” Pete asked, scanning the growing crowd once more.

“We get to play more than one song at the show. And the place will be completely packed in December.”

We set up in our allotted space. Another drum kit and some amplifiers were already on the other side of the stage, also behind the curtain.

“Man,” Carl said dejectedly, thumbing the equipment. “That’s Jake Waters’ band, Green Space. They’re damn good.”

None of us had a comment. At three-thirty, a couple of the girls from the organizing table called for quiet. They reviewed the rules. Everyone had up to five minutes to present their act. The judges were student council members. Six winners would be posted the next day on the main bulletin board and would perform in December, in the early evening before the Winter Dance. Decisions of the judges were final.

Next to me, Carl was playing air drums. Bruno was biting his nails like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. Finally it was time to draw numbers. Carl went up to pull for us. He returned with a twelve.

“That’s good,” Bruno said quickly.

I wasn’t sure waiting would be the best idea, though. I wanted to go second or third and get it over with. We chose some seats near the exit and settled in to watch some of the acts that preceded ours.

A quartet of girls attempted a comedy routine. They were clearly underprepared. It was funny to see them mess up, but that wasn’t the point. One less competitor to worry about, we agreed.

A kid got up with an electric guitar and a tiny amp. None of us knew who he was. He announced that he was going to play Stairway to Heaven, which caused me and my friends to look at each other in surprise. A bit shameless to choose one of the most popular songs ever. But if he pulls it off... To our relief, the act was underwhelming. His instrument was a out of tune and his playing was pretty choppy. The amplifier struggled to reach into the auditorium, let alone fill it. He didn’t sing at all, and only got through a third of the guitar solo before reverting to chords and closing out somewhat ambiguously to tentative applause.

Next!

A girl took to the stage to perform a routine to Phil Collins’s Invisible Touch. We exchanged smirks at the cheesy music. About halfway through the act I realized that it was Shannon. I also realized that she was really good. To be honest, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. She was obviously a talented girl. She had already challenged my vain thoughts of being the star in my photography class. Now I was up against her in the auditions, as well.

“Well, that leaves five slots,” Pete yelled to us, as everyone clapped loudly for her.

The next act was also a shoe-in. Elaine’s brother, the popular senior, got up with an electric guitar and a blonde wig, and lip-synched to Hot for Teacher. He had David Lee Roth’s mannerisms down to a tee. Apparently he’d brought his own cheering section, since the crowd was raucous throughout. The icing on the cake was the appearance of his girlfriend, near the end of the routine. Clad in a tight pinstripe dress-suit, heels, and librarian glasses, she handed him a paper with a big red ‘F’ written on it as she sashayed past him. After crumpling it up, he took a moment to raise his sunglasses as he exaggeratedly ogled her rear end. When it was over, he casually flicked his guitar pick into a horde of screaming girls and gave the ‘rock-on’ sign with his right hand.

Brutal. It was simply impossible not to be completely envious of the performance and the insane response from the crowd.

“Make that four slots,” I called, over the noise of the cheering.

Bruno abruptly stood and headed for the exit. We followed him out.

“I can’t watch anymore,” he blurted out, once we were in the relative quiet of the hallway. The crowd was still carrying on.

“Dude wasn’t even playing,” Carl groaned, rolling his eyes.

“Still pretty cool, though,” Pete mused, with not a little admiration in his voice.

“Would’ve been better if he’d gotten Ms. Legrande to walk across,” I said, referring to our school’s unattractive French teacher.

We had a laugh at that thought, but our mood for humor soon dissipated as we sat down along the hallway. The time passed slowly. We listened to the audience respond to each unseen act, wincing when the cheers were enthusiastic. Pete kept count of the applause, increasing everyone’s nerves as our number approached. Seven ... Eight...

The sound of the theatre door opening snapped us out of our nervous silence. One of the judges poked her head out into the hallway.

“Are you guys number twelve?”

“Yeah?”

“We’ve been calling your number! You’re on!”

We looked at each other in shock. “Eleven people have gone already?”

“Some of them chickened out, so it’s your turn. Hurry up, we’re all waiting!”

We jumped up. Suddenly everything was moving too fast as we rushed the stage. The curtain was already open as we hurried to our places and awkwardly strapped on our guitars. My heart was in my throat. I was glad I didn’t have to sing; nothing would’ve come out. I glanced at Bruno. He was sweating and quite red as he fumbled with his bass amp. After what seemed like an awkwardly long period in front of the restless audience, we finally indicated to each other that we were ready.

Bruno stepped up to the microphone. “Um, we’re going to play—”

He froze for a long moment. Finally he looked over at me, panic splashed across his face.

“Sunshine!“ Carl hissed at him from behind the drums.

Bruno unfroze. “My, uh, Sunshine, “ he announced.

What the hell?

The audience tittered. Great... They probably thought it was a children’s song. You are my sunshine, my only—for fuck’s sake, Bruno, really?

“... of your Love?” I mouthed.

Bruno stared at me, apparently oblivious to the situation. I looked at Carl. He shrugged and clicked his sticks together. Pete immediately started the riff.

We were way too fast! And fucking Bruno seemed to have become petrified. He missed his carefully arranged entrance that we’d gone over in practice. He just continued to gape at me. I nodded with wide eyes at his bass as the riff repeated over and over. He must have been waiting for my signal, because he finally started playing.

It sounded weird, though. Something was way out of tune on his bass. My insides felt like they were flaming up. Adding to the misery, Bruno never moved toward the mic to sing. Maybe he hasn’t noticed that we haven’t found a new singer yet? To top it off, we were speeding up, despite already being too fast.

I had to do something or we’d end up playing the same riff for three minutes, at light-speed to boot. I turned to Pete and sliced my hand across my throat. He trailed off. Hearing this, Bruno and Carl also stopped, their faces unhappy. The audience murmured and giggled. I stepped to Bruno’s microphone and, amazingly, managed to speak.

“Sorry, technical problem. Uh, give us a sec.”

Another titter rippled through the crowd. I knew my face was beet red and it wasn’t from the stage lights. As I turned away from the mic, I hissed at Bruno.

“Tune your bass, man!”

He played each string for me until the culprit was found. His ‘A’ string was low, but he was completely lost trying to fix it under pressure.

“No, the other way!” I urged, as the string visibly slackened.

After what seemed like an eternity, we were finally in tune, or close enough.

“Come on, Bruno, you can do this!” I whispered, still pretending to adjust my guitar as I spoke.

“I don’t remember the words!” he hissed, his eyes desperate.

“‘It’s getting near dawn’?” I reminded him.

A look of relief wiped the panic away. “Oh, right.”

“Are you okay, man?”

“Yeah, yeah. All right.” He huffed a few times as he talked himself off the ledge. “Just like practice. Just like practice ... Let’s do it.”

He still had deer-in-the-headlights eyes, but I nodded confidently as I stepped back to my place. To my relief, Bruno moved to the mic and spoke.

“Bass was out of tune, sorry,” he announced. “Here we go. Sunshine of Your Love.”

Without waiting for Carl to set the pace, I just started the riff at the right speed. Pete frowned at me. I ignored his look and luckily he and Carl joined in. Bruno missed his cool bass entrance again, but at least he sang this time.

“So how did it go?” Heather asked.

“It went,” I replied evenly.

There was a giggle on the other end of the line. “That good, huh?”

“Bruno totally freaked out!” I wailed. “We had to stop after we started the first time!”

“Oh no! What happened?”

“He forgot the song, forgot the words, forgot to tune, forgot to come in, you name it. Told those guys we weren’t ready!”

“Ouch.”

“We did start over, once he tuned up. It was better the second time, but still.”

“That’s good.”

“I guess. But it gets worse, because when we got off the stage, Bruno told us that he’s done singing. For good.”

“Oh. So who’s going to sing?”

“Doesn’t really matter. We’re not going to get into the show, after that tragedy. Another band also auditioned, and they literally blew us off the stage. There was no comparison.”

“You might still get in,” Heather consoled.

“Doubt it. Anyway, we’ll find out tomorrow morning.” I sighed. “I hate to say it, but I can’t talk much more. I really need to finish this English paper for tomorrow.”

“That’s cool. I have some homework left too, and I don’t want to be doing it this weekend when I’m visiting my favorite person.”

A grin spread across my face, despite my tense attitude. “I can’t wait! How early are you leaving?”

“As soon as I can get my parents moving. I’m packing the car tomorrow night. I’m still hoping we can be there by lunchtime.”

“It’s going to be great!”

“Okay, get to work. Call me tomorrow and let me know how the results went.”

“I will. But it’ll probably be rejection.”

“You won’t be all down this weekend, though, if you don’t get in?”

“No. The audition is nothing compared to you coming.”

That was the truth. Or was it? It had been several hours since the debacle and I was still very uptight about it. Hopefully I’d be able to shake it off by Saturday.

It was late when I finished my English paper. My parents were asleep, but I noticed that Lara’s light was on when I went to brush my teeth. I wandered over there after finishing in the bathroom.

“Hey, are you still working on it?”

Lara turned to me, her eyes tired. “Yeah. I started over. My first version sucked.”

“Wow. I would’ve been okay with ‘sucked’ and gone to sleep. Almost done?”

“Almost, I think. I’m just trying to reread it, but I keep zoning out.”

“I know the feeling,” I remarked, plopping down onto her bed.

After a few minutes, Lara slapped her notebook shut. “All right, done. It is what it is. Move over,” she said, rising from her chair. She backhanded my arm gently as she stretched out next to me. “You guys sounded good today.”

I sniggered, unexpectedly feeling more relaxed about the audition. “Whatever. You don’t have to pretend with me.”