Summary
It takes a night out with Malcolm and his jazzmen for Angela to live again.
Except for spotlights on the main stage and the bar, the venue had dismal lighting. The scene itself was small and intimate, full but not packed. Patrons, dressed hip for the night and certainly younger than herself, were all waiting, giving an air of aficionado sharks in the know.
And so began the longest forty-five minutes experienced in recent human history as the band rolled out play-it-safe, tired jazz standards. Claire had to conceal her shock by fully covering her mouth with both hands. One by one, patrons left. Last to go were some loud-mouth, out-of-towners, one yelling out, ‘—whose idea was it to come here tonight?’ At the end, Reg called into the microphone the name of the band and each player’s name, but no one was listening.
After closing with ceiling lights on, stagehands turned up chairs without pattern as they swept. Each player was in a mood, avoiding each other by looking busy with their respective instruments. Claire had joined them on stage, probably half expecting to be helpful in a First Grip capacity, but even she stood there with a certain deer-hit-by-a-jumbo-jet look in her eyes.
Out of nowhere, the venue got an earful of Malcolm shouting from the bar, “—that won’t even cover our dry cleaning! The streets need to hear about your cheapness!”
A new voice, more on the country thug side of life, hit back. “Cheapness? You scared off my patrons! Yer lucky I’m not chargin’ y’all for my losses!”
Claire dropped off the stage and ran over to the argument. She didn’t even wait for an introduction. “Sorry, we haven’t met. I’m Claire.”
A man named “Tony,” situated high behind the bar, changed his tone when seeing her, giving Claire looks full of hunger and suggestion.
Claire pushed through. “Grand setup. That’s a mixing board, yeah? Can it record?”
“Oh yeah. Yamaha somethin’ or other. That light says when it’s recordin’.”
“Anyone still around t’run it?”
“My nephew Phil. He’s around here someplace. Why?”
She whispered in Malcolm’s ear, “Whatever you’re ‘feeling,’ this is your ‘Coffee Four,’ and you need to lead them. What better way to get their skin in the game than a recording pressure?”
Malcolm smiled. More like bloomed, even if it were brief. He motioned for Tony to come close enough so he could whisper in his ear. After relaying some instructions, Tony stepped back with a similar smile before shouting, “Phil! Where ya at?”
“Claire, this is all you—” from Malcolm, as he held up his hand for guidance.
Claire latched his hand to her elbow and brisk-walked him back onto the stage. Once she settled him, she fired her first volley. “So, who’s gonna apologize first?”
The backing players shared a lost look. “Apologize? For—” from Drake.
“For starters, that dog’s breakfast y’all called a session.”
Excluding Malcolm, her words set the players off, each blaming the other until all anger landed with Reg. He quickly redirected it as hate towards Claire, calling her all kinds of nasty slurs, holding nothing back. The first to eventually speak without swearing was Fats. “Whoa! Hold up. Twenty years in the bid’ness, there’s gonna be an off—”
