Power Chord

by Ted Staunton

  Great. It’s too late now. They see us coming. Are they giggling about us already?

  “Hey, Video Club!” Denny calls. Now they’re giggling for sure. I can feel myself shrinking.

  I look around for Pigpen. He’s bigger, and maybe I can duck behind him. He’s gone. No, he’s sitting by himself way down the bleachers, opening his lunch. How did he do that? There’s no time to wonder.

  “You guys still looking for a video project?” Denny asks. He’s already climbing the bleachers toward the girls.

  “Maybe,” says Alison. I feel my face turning red, and I shrink some more. The other girls are still giggling.

  “Well, me and Ace have got one for you,” says Denny. His grin is a mile wide. “You can record our new band. We need performance video for our Myspace page. Have you been reading my tweets?”

  More giggling. “We didn’t know you were tweeting, Denny.” That’s Jessica. I love girls with black hair. In fact I love girls of all hair colors. But I have trouble talking to any of them.

  Denny babbles on. “We have this new band, Incoming. It’s really turning out cool. There’s Pigpe…Jared on drums, Ace on bass—hey, that rhymes! And I’m on guitar and lead vocals.” Denny spreads his arms out wide. His gig bag bounces. “We promise to rock your worlds!”

  Rock your worlds? If I shrink any more, all that will be left of me will be shoes. There’s nothing I can do but send beams of shut up thoughts at Denny.

  “Where are you performing?” Lucy asks.

  I guess Denny doesn’t get my message. He blathers, “Well, nowhere yet. That’s why we need a video. To get performances. We just started. We’re practicing in Ace’s basement.”

  “In Ace’s basement?” says Lucy. I think she’s been there, at my sixth birthday party.

  “Yeah,” Denny says. “Hey, you could put Ace’s cat in the video! He barfs every time we play. That’s how we know we’re extreme.” Denny hoists his gig bag. “Or know what, you could all be in it too!”

  “As what,” Nadia says, “adoring fans?”

  I wish, but I don’t say so. I’d have better luck wishing for death.

  Denny says, “Sure! But, no, like, we could make something up. Maybe you could all hate us as much as the cat—”

  “You mean we have to barf?” says Jessica.

  Denny laughs and says, “No, but, like, we play really badly at first. Then you come in and show us how to rock or something. You know, we could make up a story.”

  “We’ll think about it,” Alison says.

  “Cool,” Denny says. “Let us know soon, okay? We have to get this done, and we want to make it really good.” He hops down the steps, the gig bag bouncing on his back. I’m right behind him.

  “Okay,” they call. There’s more giggling.

  “And check out my tweets!” he calls.

  “Okay!” Now they are laughing.

  Halfway across the field I say to Denny, “Nice try.” He sounded like an idiot, but I didn’t sound like anything, did I?

  “Nice try?” Denny says. “Are you kidding? They loved it.” Out comes the cell. He tweets: incoming video 4 sure. Watch 4 it!

  Chapter Eight

  “Our time has come,” Denny announces at our next practice.

  This is news to me. A week has gone by. Girls have not called. Denny’s little sister did come over to take pictures. She used Denny’s cell phone and shot twenty seconds of video too. Denny tried to play guitar behind his head and bashed out the ceiling light. Pig posted the video and pictures anyway on the Incoming Myspace page. Not all of them show our heads. That could make us a mystery band. He has also printed the words sonic BOOM! beside the biggest picture of us on the Myspace page. It’s a start anyway.

  As I finish tuning my bass I say, “Our time has come? I hope it brought pizza.”

  “No, really,” Denny says. “Look at this.”

  It’s a bright green flyer advertising a contest at the youth center. Everyone can play two original songs, and the winners get to be in a show downtown, right outside City Hall.

  “Wait a sec,” I say. “Original songs? We don’t have original songs. We play covers.”

  Denny says, “So we’ll write some. C’mon, how hard can it be?” He picks up one of the old Razorburn cds. “These guys did it, right?”

  “I guess,” I say. “I can’t remember.”

  “Then we can do it too,” Denny says. “We can all write together. Listen, I already made up a riff and a first line on the walk here.”

  Denny plugs in and plays his riff. It’s pretty lame. It’s a repeat of the same note and then one note down: duh-duh duh-duh, duh-duh duh-duh.

  “That’s it?” I say.

  “Listen to the words.” He plays again and chants: “Don’t wanna be what you call normal.” Then he stops. “Okay, what should come next?”

  “That’s it?”

  “What do you want?” Denny complains. “It wasn’t a long walk. Anyway, we’re supposed to write this together.”

  We jam on Denny’s riff. It’s not hard to do. Figuring what comes next is hard. We call it “Not So Normal” and get as far as this:

  Don’t wanna be what you call normal

  Be the one who barfs at formals

  Be the YouTube booger eater

  Be the silent farting tweeter

  “Then what?” asks Denny.

  “Be the shoe with something on it,” I say.

  “Ewwww,” Denny cackles. He really does cackle “heh-heh-heh” like a dirty old man. “That’s not very mature, Ace.”

  “Well, maturity is overrated,” I say. “This is a punk song, right?”

  “Whoa,” Denny says. He hits the riff: “Ma-tur-it-y is ov-er-ra-ted. Okay, rhyme that.”

  Pig says his first word of the afternoon, “Naked.” His nickname fits his mind anyway.

  Denny thinks it over. “It’s pretty close. Does it fit? Dated? Hated?”

  I think of a rhyme, but I don’t say it. It’s grosser than Pig’s suggestion. Instead, I say, “Let’s get some juice.”

  In the kitchen, Denny is saying, “I told you this would be easy,” when I hear the front door. Mom comes in. Archie is trotting ahead of her.

  “Hi, guys,” she says. “Having practice?”

  I nod. She opens the kitchen drawer and pulls out earplugs. Then motormouth Denny blows it, big-time. “Not just having practice,” he says. “We’re writing a song.”

  “No kidding,” Mom says. “That’s great. Davey and I used to have a friend who wrote songs.”

  “Chuck,” says Denny.

  Mom smiles and says, “That’s right. Did you ever meet him? Anyway, I’d love to hear your song.”

  Denny’s eyes widen into car headlights. Pig starts drinking as if he’s dying of thirst. I choke and spray juice out my nose.

  Mom isn’t exactly our target audience.

  “We’re just getting started,” I say. “We’ll play it for you when it’s done. C’mon guys, we should get back to work.” Our footsteps on the stairs sound like a bad drum roll.

  “Not So Normal” doesn’t sound so great in a whisper.

  “It is a good song,” Denny says. “I just don’t want to scream it right now. My voice is getting tired.” He takes off his guitar.

  I have a bad feeling. “Den,” I say, turning off my amp, “can you think of one girl you’d dare to sing that song to?”

  Denny says, “If I scream enough, nobody will know what—”

  “If you scream that much at the contest, no one will know what the words are, and we won’t win,” I say back.

  “Won’t win if they do know what the words are,” says Pig.

  He’s got a point.

  “Well…,” says Denny.

  I say, “Would you sing it to Nadia, or Lucy or Alison—”

  Denny says, “In Chinese, maybe. If I knew it.”

  “Lucy is Chinese,” I say.

  “Japanese,” says Pig.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say.
“Those girls are smart. They probably all know Chinese and Japanese. Don’t duck the question.”

  “Okay. Probably not,” Denny says, as he coils his guitar cord.

  I say, “The whole idea was to get girls, right? So we gotta start over.”

  “But it’s hard,” Denny complains. He picks up the Razorburn cd again.

  I nod at the box of cds and say, “You said if they could do it, we could too. Maybe we should all try to write a song on our own before our next practice. Then see what we get.”

  Behind me I hear the zipper on Denny’s gig bag. “You want to practice Saturday?” I ask.

  “Busy till Saturday night,” Pig says. He’s pulling on a sweatshirt that says TOP GUN. Maybe it’s a video game.

  I say, “Well, Saturday night?”

  Pig nods. I look at Denny. He’s already picking up his case. “Yeah, yeah,” he says.

  I raise my eyebrow and say, “Or will you be busy with Lucy and Jessica and—”

  “You’ll be the first to know,” Denny says.

  “In Chinese,” I say.

  “Later,” we all say.

  Chapter Nine

  Now I have to write a song—and I have a math test tomorrow. Writing and studying get in the way of each other all evening. I decide to take my guitar to school the next morning to get more done on the song after the test. I don’t know if I look cool. I’m too busy sweating over the math test and the song to think about being cool. No girls rush me though.

  At lunch I look for a quiet place to work on my song. Songwriting is hard, especially with math on the brain. Nearly everything I’ve thought of sounds like another song or like an equation. It’s driving me nuts. I don’t want to give up though. I’ve thought of one little bit, and my future with girls depends on it.

  As I walk down the hall, an acoustic guitar jangles from the music room. A high voice is humming. I don’t take music at school because I don’t want to get stuck playing a dweeb instrument like clarinet. I look inside and see a guy with long red hair and a jean jacket. He’s got his back to me, playing a guitar. Is it that guy from No Money Down, maybe? There’s an open notebook and a pen on the desk beside him. He stops and writes something.

  “Hey,” I say, “are you writing a song too?” I’m so into the songwriting that the words just pop out.

  He jumps a little and turns. Only he’s a she. She has freckles and a tiny green nose stud. She is probably my age. I’ve never seen her before, but it’s a big school.

  “Yeah, I am,” she says. Her face gets pink. I think mine does too.

  I start backing away, saying, “Oh. Sorry. I was just…I’m trying to do one for this contest.”

  “At Lakeshore Youth Center?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Me too.” She brushes her hair back behind her ear. “What kind of song?”

  I clear my throat and say, “Um, a rocker, I guess. I have this pattern.”

  “Show me,” she says. “’Cause right now I’m stuck.”

  “Really? Wow. Me too.” I get out my guitar. “See, this is what I’ve got so far.”

  I play a pattern of power chords: 8th fret 3rd 6th 1st.. Duh duh duuh duh-duh duh-duh, with the last duh-duhs a little faster.

  It rocks pretty good. All I need now is a melody and lyrics that you can sing in front of girls. I don’t say that out loud.

  “What are those chords?” She squints at my hand.

  I say, “Um, they’re power chords. They come out of the bottom two notes.” I carefully make an F barre chord pattern. I hate F chords. They take me forever to make on the guitar and they kill my hand.

  “Oh, sweet,” she says. “Barre chords, I get. I took acoustic lessons. What frets are you at?”

  I show her. She works out that the chords are C, G, B-flat and F.

  B-flat and F? Wow. Maybe I’m better than I thought.

  She plays them, easily, as barre chords.

  I say, “Cool. That’s good.”

  “They sound better with the power chords,” she says. “Show me again.”

  I do. It feels good to show someone else music stuff.

  She tries the chords and says, “Cool. I’ve got to learn those. What comes next?”

  I swallow and say, “Ah…uh…that’s all I’ve got. That’s why I’m stuck.” The room starts to feel too warm.

  “Oh,” she says. “See, I always start with words.” She nods at the desk. “I’ve got a book full of them. It’s the other part that’s hard for me. But know what?” She flips her hair behind her ear again. “I don’t think you need words there. That part should be your hook or whatever. Then you write a song with that in it.”

  “Oh.” So I haven’t written a song yet.

  This is bad, but the girl is still talking. “It’s in C, right?”

  “C?”

  “It’s in the key of C, right?” she says. “’Cause it starts on C.”

  “Riiiight.” Chuck used to talk about keys. There was something about how chords go together. I’m going to have to find out what they are before this girl finds out I’m a moron. Maybe I should have taken music, clarinets and all.

  “So,” she says, “after you play that part, try a C again and start singing.”

  I try it. I don’t sing out loud, but I keep that duh-duh duh-duh beat going. A word pops into my head: Running running running.

  Is this an idea? It feels like one. Should I run right now? I don’t run. Instead I stop playing and say, “Wow. That really helps.”

  She smiles and says, “Can I try that power chord again? This right? So that would be G. Then in my song it would be…”

  She plays a bouncier rhythm: bum bum-bum-bum-bum, bum bum-bum-bum-bum, and goes up the neck and sings:

  Hey, when you see me

  Don’t act so dreamy

  Hear every word I say…

  Wow. She has a killer voice, and it’s a good tune too. She stops. “That sounds way better than this.” She plays again, with regular chords.

  Now it’s my turn to watch hands. I say, “Those are G, A and C, right? Try it again, okay? I can see a bass part.” I can’t play it that fast right off. “Can you slow down a little?” I ask.

  We try it again. This time I can play along. She likes it.

  “That is so awesome,” she says.

  I say, “I’m more of a bass player than a guitarist.”

  “Really?” she says. “Can you show me again? I want to teach that to our bass player.”

  I say, “You’ve got a band? What’s it called?”

  She says, “No Shirt No Shoes No Service.”

  Niiiiice.

  “We’re just getting started,” she says.

  “Us too,” I say. “Mine is called Incoming.”

  “I like that.” She does that hair thing again.

  “Who are you into?” I ask.

  She starts listing bands. I’m nodding when it really hits me. I’m playing guitar, writing and talking with a super-talented girl who has a killer smile, and, well, a whole lot of other things. And she knows tons about music.

  She says, “Oh, and Sleater-Kinney too. God, how could I forget?”

  Who? I can’t ask. I’ll look even dumber. Suddenly I’m the Incredible Shrinking Ace again. I say, “Well, I should probably let you…” I turn to put Chuck’s guitar away and clunk it against a desk. “Thanks a lot for helping. That was really…”

  “Hey, back at you,” she says. “Thanks for showing me power chords and the bass line.”

  My knees practically melt. There is enough of me left to say, “Um, maybe our bands should do, like, a show together or something. We don’t make the cat barf anymore.”

  She gives her head a shake, as if she hadn’t heard right. Then she says, “Awesome.” She starts to pack up too. “Bell’s gonna go. Hey, Facebook me, okay?”

  “Sure.” Now I’m trying to fasten the snaps on my guitar case, but my fingers aren’t working.

  “At Lisa Picks,” she says.
>
  “For sure,” I say. “I’m Dave. But it’ll say, um, Ace. It’s, like…”

  She nods. “Yeah, a nickname. So’s Picks.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Cool. Well…,” I say.

  “Yup,” says Lisa Picks. “Later.”

  I’m almost back to my locker when I wonder, Did I tell her we don’t make the cat barf anymore? Oh, no. I’m shrinking again.

  Chapter Ten

  “Ohhh-kay, Ace! Lay it on us.” It’s Saturday night practice. We’ve just finished listening to Pig’s song. Well, actually it was a drum solo. Archie shot upstairs when Pig got going. I can hear him yowling up there somewhere.

  Now it’s my turn. My fingers are shaky. I pretend to check my tuning. “Okay,” I say, “I’m not quite done yet. It’s, like, a road song.” I make the C power chord on the acoustic and blow the start. I take a breath and try again. This time I get it. I don’t hit all the high notes, and I mess up a couple of chords, but it’s pretty good:

  Running running running it’s a thing

  that I do

  Running running running far away

  from you

  Running running running is the

  thing that I know

  Running running running and I have

  to go

  I’m sleeping in the backseat and

  running all the time

  Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh duh

  Duh-duh-duh-duh duh duh

  Duh.

  I stop. “The duhs aren’t really the lyrics. I haven’t got them right yet. But that’s the idea.”

  It’s still quiet. I say, “And I didn’t hit all the high notes ’cause…” I point upstairs, where Mom might be listening.

  It’s still quiet. Finally, Denny nods and says, “Okay.” Pig shrugs and nods.

  That’s all that they say. I feel like Led Zeppelin with a leak. Geez, all Pig came up with was a drum solo. A drum solo. I only said I liked it to be nice.

  “It’s okay? That’s it?” I hear my voice squeak a little.

  “Well, what do you want?” Denny says. “We only heard it once.”

  What do I want? I was hoping for fireworks and these guys falling off their chairs. Then a standing O, a million dollars and Lisa forgetting the cat barf comment and saying I’m cool.

  “Want me to play it again?” I say.