Spacecraft

by Benjamin Broke

sighed “Alright, forty.” He said. “Whatever. I’ll take it.”

  “And you?” He asked me.

  “Sure.” I said.

  “Well come on in guys, I’ll get the money and the paperwork.” He opened the door to a dimly lit room. “What was your name again?”

  “Bobby.” Michael said.

  The guy looked at me as I followed Michael into the house. “Uh, I’m Brad.” I said.

  “Nice to meet you.” He said. “I’m Raymond.” He shut the door and told us to sit down. The room had a lime green couch, facing away from the door, and a coffee table stacked high with sound engineering magazines. There was a chest of drawers opposite the couch that had a small television on it with tin foil on the antennae. There was a lamp on the end table with a crochet lampshade, and on the wall hung three neon beer signs and a wooden owl with a clock in it’s chest, leering down at us. The place smelled strongly of onions.

  When we sat down on the couch a cloud of dust billowed into the air. Raymond told us he’d be right back and left the room. “What’d he mean paperwork?” I whispered.

  “Don’t worry about it.” He said. “It’s nothing.”

  “This place is fucked up.”

  “Yeah, check out the carpet over here.” He said. I looked down to the right of where he was sitting and saw a rough spot. It must’ve been some kind of grease or oil, with bits of food mashed in. It looked like someone had stomped french fries into the rug about a month before and left it there.

  Raymond came back and handed us each a sheet of paper and a pen. “Write your name, address and phone number.” He said.

  “What’s this for?” I asked.

  “Well if those bikes turn out to be stolen I could get in trouble.” He said. “I have to keep records so the cops don’t shut me down.” He sat down in a wooden armchair.

  “Oh, right.” I said. I wrote that my name was Brad Kaupas and that I lived on Hermann Way in Pasadena. After I put seven random numbers down I handed the paper back to Raymond. When Michael had done the same, the man counted out our money in fives and tens. “You’re a sound engineer?” I asked as I put the money in my wallet.

  “Yeah, I sure am.” He said. “Bicycles are just a sideline. A little extra income.”

  “What does a sound engineer do?” I asked. “Record music?”

  “Yeah, and other things.” He said. “I’ve done some commercials and stuff too. I could never work on a movie or a TV show because I’m self taught. They won’t even look at you if you don’t have a degree. I’ve been a professional sound engineer for fifteen years, but that still doesn’t get me through the door with the movie people.”

  “That sucks.” Michael said.

  “Yes it does.” He said. “But I don’t really care. In my studio, I’m the boss and I can do things my way, which I think is better than having some high profile gig, you know what I mean?”

  “You have your own studio?” Michael asked.

  “Yeah, it’s in the basement.” He said. “You want to check it out?”

  We both said that we did. We followed Raymond through a hallway into a gray kitchen. He opened a door and led us down some stairs into another hallway and through a door that made a scuffling sound as he opened it. When he turned the lights on we saw that it was a small room with black sound-insulation panels on the walls and ceiling that looked like egg crates. There was a drum set on a raised platform with microphones all around it and behind the drum set was a window to a smaller room in the back that held a large mixing console. There were a couple of speakers high up on the wall and three guitar amps of various sizes around the room.

  “Cool.” Michael said. “You built all this yourself?”

  “Yep, took me many years.” He said. “There’s still a lot more to do, but of course it takes money.”

  “But you probably make good money renting this place out.” I said.

  “Not as much as you might think.” He said. “Here check this out.” We followed him into the small room at the back. Beside the mixing board there was a large reel to reel tape recorder with three VCRs stacked on top of it. There was a padded swivel chair and shelves stuffed with reels and videotapes. He gestured towards the mixing console. “This board here cost eight thousand dollars.” He said.

  “What’s all the VCRs for?” Michael asked.

  “Oh well, reel to reel tapes can be expensive, so sometimes I just record onto videotape. The sound quality is actually almost as good.”

  “What kind of stuff do you record here?” I asked.

  “Oh blues, rock n’ roll, different stuff. We recorded a Raiders fight song that got played on the radio a few times last year. They even played it at the stadium.” He pulled a videotape off the shelf and put it into a VCR. “Check this out.” He said. He flipped a couple of switches on his eight thousand dollar mixing board and hit play. It sounded like classic rock from the seventies only with weaker guitar sound and no vocals. It sounded like Foghat.

  “This is real good.” Michael said. “Who is it?”

  “Me.” He said.

  “What are you playing?” Michael asked.

  “Everything.” He said. “With this equipment I can record as many parts as I want. I’ve recorded hundreds of songs. All original material. This one’s my latest, I call it Perpetual Motions.”

  “Good title.” I said.

  We listened awkwardly for another few minutes. The song seemed to be going on forever. Finally he must’ve gotten embarrassed because he turned it off. “You guys drink beer?” He asked. We said we did. He led us back through the hallway and up the stairs to the kitchen, where he got three beers out of the fridge and opened them on a metal bottle opener attached to the wall. We sat around his kitchen table sipping our beer and listening to him talk about his music.

  “Our friend’s in a band.” Michael said. “They might want to record some songs sometime. Do you have a card or something I could give him?”

  “Yeah, sure.” He said. “I’ll give it to you before you go. Is it a garage band or something?”

  “Yeah, they play gigs here and there.” Michael said.

  “I’ll give you the sheet that has my rates too.” He said. “They’ll probably want the demo package. It’s eight songs or ten hours in the studio for two hundred and fifty bucks. Then it’s just fifty cents for every tape we make off the master.”

  “Twenty five bucks an hour isn’t too bad.” I said.

  “That’s the demo package. It goes up to thirty five after ten hours. I like to work with new groups, that’s why it’s so cheap. Believe me, I’m never gonna get rich doing this. If it wasn’t for my social security I couldn’t pay my bills.”

  “What do you get social security for?” Michael asked.

  “I have Multiple Sclerosis.” He said. “I got the diagnosis right after my parents died five years ago now.”

  “Oh, sorry.” Michael said. “That sucks.”

  “Yeah well, they left me the house, so at least I’ll always have a place to stay. I’m better off than most people with MS. It’s just hard to pay the medical bills. You’ll understand when you’re a little older and you have to pay your own way in life. It’s like this weight is constantly pushing down on you.”

  “I think I know what you mean.” I said. “I have to pay rent… it stresses me out.”

  “Yeah, but you probably have a job. I don’t. I scrape together money here and there.” He sipped his beer. “I can’t get a job. No one wants to hire a guy with MS, and anyway I can’t work for more than a few hours before I get tired.”

  “I don’t have a job.” I said. “I scrape together money too. Why do you think I’m over here selling my sister’s bike? But I’ll tell ya this, I’d rather be broke than have a job any day.”

  Raymond sipped his beer some more and looked us over. “Well,” he said, “a couple of young guys like you could make some money whenever you wanted. There’s lots of stuff you could do.”

  “Like what?�
�� Michael asked.

  “Oh I don’t know.” He looked down at his beer. “There’s all kinds of people in this world. Are you guys straight?”

  Michael shot me an amused look. “Yeah.” He said. “We’re straight.”

  “Well I know a guy who’d pay you each fifty dollars just to watch you jack off.” He said. “You wouldn’t even have to touch him, just let him watch you.” His face went red as he spoke.

  “What the fuck?” Michael said, standing up. “I’m not gonna let some fag watch me jack off, I don’t care how much money he pays.” I started laughing at Michael’s reaction to the proposal.

  “Alright, relax.” He said. “I know lots of strange people, that’s all. I was just telling you a way you could make money hypothetically.”

  “Yeah, well keep that sick fag shit to yourself. C’mon Nick let’s get out of here.” I followed him down the hall and through the den we’d been sitting in before. The guy called out for us to wait a minute.

  “You forgot to take the information for your friend.” He said. Michael walked out the back door but I waited until the guy came around with a business card and a sheet of paper. I thanked him and folded it up, sticking it in my front pocket.

  Michael was standing on the sidewalk next to his skate, holding the bolt cutters. He shook his head as I came out. “Can you believe that shit?” He asked. I started laughing again.

  When we finally got back up near my house I asked him if he wanted to hang out for a while. “Nah,” he said, “I gotta get home and erase the message from school or my mom’s gonna bitch me