Free Candy

Chapter 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The band had a monthly rotation of duties. During week one everyone wrote lyrics and emailed them on to the other members. Inspired by their own words or by the gems they received, they would all lay down a drum track, some chords and at least a melody. By the 15th of the month, the most promising rough draft would be chosen and it would be entrusted to one band member to shepherd it on to a living, breathing thing in the following week. Sometimes it wasn’t pretty, and the rules were about as rigid as a strand of hair, but occasionally they found a pearl.

There were three members of the band; Marie, Gretchen and Suzi Hashimoto. This week it was Marie’s turn to push some lyrics that Suzi wrote into the cracks of the music tracks that Gretchen had come up with. Marie always thought that this was the hardest week of the month when she had the job, because she didn’t want to step on anything Gretchen or Suzi had written. But, it was the third week of the month and it was her turn at the wheel. Next week they’d all get together and really get the song done, regardless of whose bits stayed and which ones ended up on the floor.

Gretchen loved, more than air itself, everything that Ben Hibbard sang, wrote or touched. She worshiped Death Cab for Cutie. She sang every song that The Postal Service had when she was tending bar. She even had an iPod Shuffle at the bar filled with Hibbard’s entire oeuvre, and nothing else. So, Marie was listening another DCFC flavored melody as interpreted by Gretchen Maxwell, trying to fit in the verses of iambic pentameter that Suzi had written.

Once she turned off every track except the melody and the click, she read the lyrics in time with the beat. For once, it gelled right from the start. She pushed a couple of rhymes around in the second and third verse to work, but the chorus was spot on. Gretchen must have memorized the poetry before she dove into Garage Band. She sang the lyrics into her MacBook and then did a rough mix with the drums and bass line Gretchen had given her.

This song sounded great, she thought. She saved the project and pushed it out to an MP3 file so she could email it Suzi. Then she copied it over to her iPod and decided to run down to the bar and see what Gretchen thought. First she called down to the Six Pound Cleaver to make sure Gretchen was still there.

“Six pounds of carbon steel, at your service,” Gretchen said when she answered the phone.

“Hey, it’s Marie. Do you want to hear what I did with the song of the month?”

“Sure, come on down and impress me. It’s really slow here at the moment.”

“OK, I’ll be there in two shakes,” Marie said, hanging up the phone.

She thought about the note that she left for Steven. She decided to bring it to the bar and see what he did when she handed it to him in person. Since it had only taken about an hour to get the song together, she decided to see if Sheila wanted to tag along for the fun. Marie made her way back down into the basement of the building and knocked on Sheila’s door.

“Who is it?”, she asked from inside apartment.

“It’s Marie. I hope you were still awake.”

“Yeah, just a sec,” Sheila said as she unlocked the door and unhooked the chain.

When the door opened, Sheila was standing there in light green, flannel pajamas.

“I can’t remember which one you are. Is it Tinky-Winky or Dipsy?” Marie asked, laughing.

Sheila looked down at her outfit and said, “Oh, I’m pretty sure the green one is Dipsy.”

“I heard Tinky-Winky might be gay,” Marie said.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” They both said at the same time, smiling.