Saturday, February 25th

7pm

Mace Mead Works in Dayton

See you there!

THE RADIO:

• Plays constantly
• Can be turned off and on at will
• Inanimate
• Has no capacity for higher thought or feeling
• Is entertaining… Sometimes
• Can be stuffed in a closet
• Only talks about news, politics, and current events
• Is free
• Is courageous only in the face of a power surge

THE MUSICIAN:

• Plays constantly
• Turns on and off at their own will
• Living, breathing, animate object
• Cares what you think and has emotions
• Works hard to be entertaining
• Deserves respect
• Loves to talk to you about music, or other things you may have in common
• Is paid… Sometimes
• Is courageous in offering a part of their soul with every song

Musicianing is hard work. It’s an art that takes countless hours of preparation for only a few hours of entertainment. At the base of it, it makes my day to see you relax and take solace in my music after a mind-numbing day. I don’t care if I’m the main attraction, so long as somebody connects, feels, understands. I’m more infamous than famous, and this little dive is not Carnegie Hall. I know that. It’s painfully obvious whenever I glance at the tip jar…

But regardless, these are my few hours, and I want to share them with you. Consider it a date of sorts, if you will. Would you shoot your date a dirty glance for wanting to converse with you, face-to-face? Is a cell phone shouting match with your mother that important? Does hanging onto the miserable events of a miserable day help you in any way?

Let me play for you. Let me see if I can make you smile, forget your cares for a while. Let me try to show you that I get it, that I’ve been there, too. Let me give you my undivided attention. Let me in, just for a little while.

Give me a chance. That’s all I ask. And if you find a little peace while you’re in my care, let me know, even if all it is is a smile and nod as you leave.

I am not a radio. I’m a human being.

I don’t care what you are, or are not, she’d said to him.  She didn’t care.

He shook his head in tiny amazement as they pushed through the science facility doors, onto the cool campus green.  Sprinklers arced in slow circles, the spray like a misty web, and they ran together, feet squishing into the grass, until they were clear.

As the sleeping streets enveloped them, he looked at her again.  Silent tears glistened on her cheeks, and he paused to gently wipe them away.

Startled, she looked into his face, her eyes clear and dark as calm water, and he wondered what he’d gotten himself into.

* * *

(This piece is the finale to an ongoing serial story. You can catch up on the plot or start from the beginning via the Serials page. If you liked this work, please consider purchasing one of my other stories, or some of my music for your collection. )

So, I’ve never been very fond of how the electronic pickup on my ukulele sounds. I’ve always thought it a bit harsh. Well, last night when I was fooling with my amp to make sure the riotstat for the volume knob wasn’t busted (it wasn’t), I nudged the pickup adjustments on my uke and LO! The harsh edge to the tone was GONE! I happily spent several minutes tweaking them this way and that way until I found just the right sound I wanted…

To quote Dear Husband:

“And just *how* long have you owned this setup?”

To which I sheepishly admit that just because I can play multiple instruments and take delight in spending my nights as a musical ninja, does not mean I’m skilled at reading users manuals…

“Little good your bullets do, Leslie,” the Devil said, showing me the mushroomed mess of my hollow-point bullet.  He flicked the bullet into the trashcan, where it pinged and rolled about the metal bottom.  Then, he tapped the side of his head with one finger, and pointed it at me with a grin.  “I am the Devil, after all,” he said.

“Let him go!” I screamed, losing it.  “Let him go!”

The Devil shook his head.  “No can do, kiddo.  You see, he’s leverage.  I want you to agree to come with me, and then, I’ll let him go.  No questions asked.  Your father will be free to live the long, prosperous, saintly life he’s always craved.”

“Liar,” I said.

He grinned at me again, the razor teeth pricking out between Dad’s lips.  “So that wimp of an incubus told you things.”  He sat on the front edge of the wood desk, and his blood-soaked clothes squished around him.

“This isn’t about him.  This is about Dad, and me,” I said.

“Right, right,” the Devil said, waving a lazy hand in the air.  “So what will make you happy?  I’ll let you talk to him, one last time?”

I looked down at my gun, and felt useless.  This was like a hazy, strange dream, but the shard dug into the skin of my hand, and I knew it was real.  “Okay,” I said, stepping forward.  The Devil’s eyes gleamed as he stood, and I knew he thought he had me.

“Let me talk to my Dad,” I said, leaning forward.  He raised his clawed, long-fingered hands to embrace me.

At the last instant, I plunged the long shard through his chest and into his heart.

He crumpled forward onto me, and we went down among the strewn-out books, the disheveled, ruined papers.  Across the room, the Devil, thrown from my Dad’s body by death, shrieked in anger.  “Damn you!  How dare you take him from me!  I had you both – both of you! – in my glass!!”  Red slicked my hands, warm and sticky, but I drew my gun and fired a round at the razor-edged figure.  The bullet thumped, useless, into the bookcase as the Devil faded from view.

I sagged.  In my arms, Dad gasped for air, his lips turning blue.  Tears coated my face, pulled under my chin.  I swiped at them with the back of my wrist, smearing them.

“I’m sorry, Daddy, I’m so sorry,” I sobbed.

“Leslie, Leslie-sweetheart, don’t cry.”  He looked up at me, eyes clear grey and calm.  Air wheezed into his lungs, and he smiled, his smile.  “It’s okay now,” he said, and was gone.

Collin found me, still hanging onto the last remains of my father, sobbing like a child.  He held me, quiet and still, while I cried.  When I couldn’t cry anymore, he offered me his hand.

* * *

(This piece is part of an ongoing serial story. You can catch up on the plot via the Serials page. If you liked this work, please consider purchasing one of my other stories, or some of my music for your collection. )

Right before a performance.

(I play at the Casino Night Fundraiser for the Libery Theatre this coming Saturday.)

It’s not too bad since I like tea. I usually have a cup or two in the afternoons, so having some a few more times with honey and/or lemon in it is not too far of a stretch. And as old-school as it sounds, it is a tried and true remedy for an illness-afflicted voice. The important thing is to not strain yourself when you practice or perform with a sore throat (if you don’t have the luxury of taking a week off). Vocal cords are muscles, just like those in your leg or your arm. While they aren’t as fragile as some people think, you still need to take care of them.

I’ve been practicing a little this week to keep my chops up, and if I don’t manage to kick this bug by Saturday (and provided I’m not death warmed over), I can definitely say I’m walking on stage with my thermos of tea with honey instead of my obligatory water…

What does it mean when I say I fully intended to have All of the songs for “Let Me Go” recorded by the end of January…??

It’s not that I’m having issues with my setup, or my gear — the technical aspects of recording have been going much smoother this go-round than the last — it just seems that every time I say “I need to record,” something comes up. Time scheduling seems to be the hardest thing to master about the recording process.

Excuses, I know. Best laid plans and all that.

BUT. In the meantime I am managing to solidify all the slightly rough parts, so I suppose it’s been good… in a roundabout way…

“Hello, sweetheart,” he said, smiling.  “What are you doing here so late?”  He checked his wristwatch, shaking it forward on his arm so he could read the face.  “It’s almost midnight.”

I said nothing, my mind reeling.  Finally, after what seemed like years of silence, I found my voice.

“What happened?  Are you alright?”

It was his turn to stare blankly at me.  His grey eyes looked huge behind his coke-bottle lenses.  “What do you mean, sweetheart?” he asked.

I gestured to include the whole of the room.  “Your office was trashed!” I said, my voice leaping a pitch or two.  “Ransacked!  And you left without your phone!”

He frowned at me, removing his glasses with one hand and using the other to wipe the lenses on his shirt-front.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.  “Everything’s just the same as it has been since I arrived this morning for work.”

At that moment, I saw it.  Resting back on the third shelf, in front of all the books was my fourth grade pottery piece.

Unbroken.

Wordless, I stepped over to examine it.  Taking the item gingerly in my hands, I felt its heft, traced the unblemished surface.

“You know, Leslie, you’re awfully strong,” said her father’s voice.  “So strong, that I can’t let you get any stronger.”

I felt cold as I stepped back from the bookshelf to stare that the stranger resting in my dad’s desk chair.

“Why me?” I asked, wishing Collin would show to help me out.  The hallway remained devoid of sound.  The man behind the desk rotated his neck, the vertebrae snapping loudly.  I took another step back.

“Because,” said the Devil, “You stand in my way.”  He rose from the chair, stealthy even in his portly trappings.  “Because, if it weren’t for you, I would have owned this man long ago.”

My toe brushed up against something light and hard.  Looking down, I saw the porcelain shard of the broken piece of pottery, long and sharp as a knife.  I bent, retrieving it as he advanced.  Around me, the illusion of tidiness shattered, and the room screamed of its chaos.

“I had great plans for this man, Leslie,” he said, continuing forward as I backed up.  His eyes were no longer grey, but flame-red, bright and pupil-less.  “I had years of painstaking work behind this sorry chunk of meat, years that would pan out wonderfully….  If not for you.”  The creature in my father’s flesh grimaced out at me, some horrible combination of sharp teeth and razor-edged flesh inside the shell that was my Dad.  I felt the edge of a bookcase, an unyielding line up my spine, and I gripped my shard tight between my fingers, a link with reality.  I found myself reaching for my gun, and it gleamed black and deadly in my hand as I raised it.

He laughed, a rolling, sinister snicker.  “Leslie, sweetheart, you wouldn’t hurt your old Dad, now would you?” he said, and it was Dad’s voice, but I closed my ears to it.  He laughed again, then, “Sweetheart, you’ll hurt yourself; put down the gun.  Let Daddy take care of you.”

I was crying now as he drew near, hating myself for wanting to run to him like the little girl I’d always been.  His eyes blazed redder than before, and so I raised the gun.

“My, my; what would your mother say if she could see you, threatening your father.”  He tsked disapprovingly.

I glared at him through the blur of my tears.  “You are not my dad,” I said, and squeezed off a bullet.

* * *

(This piece is part of an ongoing serial story. You can catch up on the plot via the Serials page. If you liked this work, please consider purchasing one of my other stories, or some of my music for your collection. )

“Relax,” I said.

He paused, looking at me with eyes glinting like coals in the low light.  “You have no idea,” he said.  “I hurt mortals like you without even trying. Plus, I made a promise to keep you safe, and that includes from me, so please; keep your distance.”

He tried to extricate his hand from my grasp.

“I don’t care what you are, or are not,” I said.  Stubbornly, I held onto his fingers, daring him to refute me.

He opened his mouth to speak; instead we heard the scratching of claws on plaster down the corridor to our right.  Collin shut his mouth, cocking his head to listen.

“Stay here,” he whispered, and moved toward the sound in the dark.

I huddled close to the wall, my eyes straining to see where he’d gone.  The hairs on my neck and arms raised, prickling through the sleeves of my thin turtleneck.  The scratching noise continued, scrape, scrape.  Skrrrsh.  Scrape, scrape.  I felt for my gun.

I waited.

And waited.

The scratching noise stopped, and I expected him to rise out of the blackness like a specter to tell me it was okay.  Just a flyer on a bulletin board, flapping against the wall in the air from a vent above.

Any minute.  Any minute he’d appear beside me, and whisper to keep moving.

He didn’t come.

I waited, hanging onto the grips of my .380 until my sweaty hand was slick on the plastic.

He didn’t come.

Maybe something had happened to him, I thought.  How long had he been gone?  I wasn’t sure, and I found myself walking quickly toward the room I knew best: Dad’s office.  Even in its disrupted chaos, it would be a comfort.

* * *

“Shit,” he hissed into the black corridor.  Further down the hall, the scratching continued, moving away ever time he stepped toward it, pausing, tantalizingly close when he paused.  The damn thing had been a decoy, and now he wasn’t holding up his bargain.  He turned fast and began to run back the way he came.

He reached the spot where he’d left her and felt cold.  Cursing again, he took off for the place he thought she would be.

He really didn’t have the right to pray, being what he was, a former, discarded demon.

But it couldn’t hurt, and so he prayed he would find her first.

* * *

(This piece is part of an ongoing serial story. You can catch up on the plot via the Serials page. If you liked this work, please consider purchasing one of my other stories, or some of my music for your collection. )